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Monday closed
Tuesday till Sunday 10:00 - 17:00
Monday closed
Tuesday till Sunday 09:30 - 17:30
Whitsun 24.05.2026 10:00 - 17:00
Whit Monday 25.05.2026 10:00 - 17:00
Swiss National Day 01.08.2026 10:00 - 17:00
Swiss Federal Fast 20.09.2026 10:00 - 17:00
Monday of the Swiss Federal Fast 21.09.2026 closed
Christmas Eve 24.12.2026 10:00 - 17:00
Christmas Day 25.12.2026 closed
St. Stephen's Day 26.12.2026 10:00 - 17:00
28.12.2026 10:00 - 17:00
Labour Day 31.12.2026 10:00 - 17:00
New Year's Day 01.01.2027 closed
Berchtold's Day 02.01.2027 10:00 - 17:00
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Ever since the 16th century, Swiss society has been involved in a global network of trade, particularly with the European colonial empires. The exhibition reveals colonial fields of action in which Swiss men and women were involved. They range from involvement in the traffic of enslaved people 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 encounter 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. In the last part of the exhibition, we call on visitors to engage in the ongoing debates.
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. To this day, the transatlantic slave trade remains the largest mass deportation ever recorded, and it created the conditions under which racism could develop.
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.
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
Enslaved people were reduced to mere freight and abducted to the colonies by means of unspeakable violence. Slavery was by no means an invention of European colonialism. Although there was already a domestic trade in enslaved people in Africa, as well as a slave trade run by Arab nations, the triangular trade added a new dimension to the capitalization of the human body.
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 enslaved 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. We know that some of them brought such people to Switzerland. In Asia, mercenaries also lived with enslaved women.
What about today?
For years, calls for reparations for the crime of slavery have been voiced. This complex issue has still not been resolved. The historian Hans Fässler puts it into perspective.
The images taken by the Swiss-Brazilian photographer Dom Smaz recall the Swiss history of the village of Helvécia in Brazil, where memories of slavery linger on among the descendants of enslaved people.
A Swiss colony in Brazil
The village of Helvécia in the north-east of Brazil was known by the name of Leopoldina, a German-Swiss colony that was very active in the cultivation of coffee. Many enslaved people worked on its plantations, notably ‘Helvétia’, a plantation owned by the Swiss Johann Martin Flach. When slavery was banned in Brazil in 1888, roughly 2,000 enslaved people gained their freedom in Helvécia, among them Dona Cocota’s grandfather.
Dom Smaz, Dona Cocota, Helvécia, Brazil, 2015 | Swiss National Museum
Descendants
The photographer Dom Smaz and journalist Milena Machado Neves went to Helvécia and they decided to tell the story of the village, where the descendants of enslaved people still live alongside those of former colonial families, including the Sulzes.
Dom Smaz, Carlos Henrique Cerqueira (grandson of Henrique Sulz), Helvécia, Brazil, 2017 | Swiss National Museum
Ever since the 16th century, Swiss companies were involved in trading what were known as “colonial” goods: textiles, spices and tea from Asia; sugar, cocoa, coffee and later cotton from the Americas. European and Asian textiles were one of the main currencies of exchange in the transatlantic triangular trade.
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.
Cocoa fruit, cacahuatl (Nahuatl, language of the Aztecs), Ghana, 2024 | Swiss National Museum
Cocoa drying area in Accra
The Missions-Handlungs-Gesellschaft was founded in 1859 as an offshoot of the Basel Mission. It was active in India and Ghana, where it cultivated and traded in cocoa. A second firm, the Union Trading Company, was established in 1921; it became one of the largest commercial companies in Switzerland.
Accra, cocoa drying area, around 1904/1905, reproduction | Mission 21, Bestand der Basler Mission
The Basler Missionshandelsgesellschaft 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 labourers and a foreman in ‘colonial white’ dress – so clearly revealing the power divide
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.
World map of cotton
As early as 1870, Volkart & Cie became the fourth largest exporter of Indian cotton. In the 1930s, Volkart was forced to seek access to new markets and found them in China and Japan. The map shows the leading cotton growing areas in the world.
The Main Cotton Exporting Countries, Orell Füssli, Zurich, 1951 | Stadtarchiv Winterthur, Firmenarchiv Gebr. Volkart, Dep 42/951
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
Trading ship
This trading ship was built in 1859 on order by the Swiss cotton merchant and consul in Texas, J. C. Kuhn. It sailed to Liverpool for the first time in 1860, loaded with cotton picked by enslaved men and women.
Samuel Walters, View of Johann Conrad Kuhn’s Ship, Liverpool, 1859, oil on canvas | Swiss National Museum
In Switzerland, approximately 960 commodity 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. Are commodity companies the new colonial masters?
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.
Control of the colonies
Between 1783 and 1788, the de Meuron Regiment was stationed in the Dutch colony at the Cape of Good Hope in South Africa. The regiment was later sent to the island of Ceylon (Sri Lanka), where it took part in expeditions against the Kingdom of Kandy.
A. von Escher, Les régiments suisses au service étranger, 1850–1900. Lithograph | Swiss National Museum
Hans Christoffel
Hans Christoffel (1865–1962) from Graubünden rose through the ranks of the Royal Netherlands East Indies Army from a simple private to one of its most decorated officers. He became famous for his authoritarian style of leadership as well as his ruthlessness.
From 1905 to 1910, Christoffel headed the notorious ‘Tiger Brigade’, which was feared for its cruelty. It commits numerous abuses: torture, executions and kidnappings. On the island of Flores (today's Indonesia) he and his men were responsible for a massacre.
Portrait of the Swiss mercenary Hans Christoffel, photograph, n.d. | Collectie Museum Bronbeek
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 still remembered, as in the case of Thomas Mite whose father barely escaped by the age of ten the massacre perpetrated by Hans Christoffel.
Memories of the massacre on Flores, Indonesia, 1907-1908, under the command of Captain Hans Christoffel
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.
A film by Edgar Keller, commissioned by the Swiss National Museum, 2023
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.
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·rę (also called Tuscarora) who had been fighting for independence for years.
In 1711, it came to war. The Skarù·rę attacked New Bern, destroying almost the whole town. A year later, the Skarù·rę were defeated; many of them were either killed or captured and sold into slavery.
Capture
Together with John Lawson, a British man, von Graffenried advanced into the territory of Skarù·rę and was captured. Lawson was executed, von Graffenried later released again.
Sketch of the capture, in: Bericht über die Reise nach Amerika und die Gründung von New Bern, Christoph von Graffenried, around 1715 | Burgerbibliothek Bern, Mss.Mül.466 (1), p. I
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.
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.
Ever since the 16th century, Swiss missionaries 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.
Mission romande
Missionary activity in French-speaking Switzerland officially began in 1874, with the foundation of the Vaud Mission. Combined with the free churches of Geneva and Neuchâtel, it was renamed Mission romande (French-speaking Swiss Mission) in 1883. It was active in Lesotho, Transvaal (South Africa) and Mozambique. Prominent members included Ernest Creux (1845–1929), Paul Berthoud (1847–1930) and Henri-Alexandre Junod (1863–1934). Alongside their involvement in the normal activities of the mission, which inevitably embodied a form of cultural imperialism, they also took an interest in local cultures, carrying out linguistic and ethnological research.
Postcard, Mission romande de Transvaal, Elim chapel, around 1885 | Patrick Minder, Fribourg
Four pastors in Transvaal
The Mission romande trained native men as pastors. Their names are noted on the back, left to right: MM. Malalé, Jocobus, Machao, Jonas Mapopé et Ozias Magadzi. This postcard was sent anonymously to the couple Jean and S. Robert in Môtiers, France.
Postcard of the Mission suisse romande, Nos quatre pasteurs indigènes du Transvaal, Cliché P. Rosset, 1923 | Patrick Minder, Fribourg
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.
Mission world map
This map of the world shows the regions where Protestant and Catholic missionaries were active. Depictions of ‘heathens’ show the Mission’s ambition: to convert all the world’s peoples to Christianity.
Mission World Map, Verlag der Missionsbuchhandlung, Basel, 1891 | Mission 21, Bestand der Basler Mission
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 identifies a positive outcome of the missions in the healthcare and educational institutions set up in many places, which improved the lives of the population which had converted.
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
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
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.
Swiss worked in the Congo Free State, among other places, and their knowledge supported the plundering of the land. The engineer Victor Solioz (1857–1921) built a railway line in German Southwest Africa (modern Namibia) to ship minerals. Local resistance against the project was met with brutal violence, culminating in genocide.
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
‘L’apéro au Congo B and W’
The caption is a reference to the ‘Black & White’ whisky brand. It as well as the posture of the colonial officials, and the Congolese servants waiting on them in the background, point to a colonial power imbalance.
Taken from the collection of Paul Moehr, a Swiss post office clerk in the Congo Free State, this photograph reveals the racism of the social order. European civil servants enjoyed social advancement in the colonies: regarded as ‘mere’ functionaries in Switzerland, in the colonies they occupied a position of dominance over indigenous people. Many abused their position of power and took part in atrocities committed against the Congolese population.
‘L’apéro au Congo B and W’, Paul Moehr, Congo Free State, around 1903–1908 | Patrick Minder, Fribourg
The expansion of colonialism 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
Colonies were exploited as if their natural resources were inexhaustible. 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.
‘Planter’ on cleared land, Sumatra, late 19th c., reproduction | 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
Big game hunting
Vivienne and her father Bernard von Wattenwyl set off on a ‘hunting safari’ to East Africa in 1923/24 – commissioned to assemble a collection for the Natural History Museum in Bern.
In what is now Kenya and Uganda they shot uncountable animals. These were prepared and displayed in the museum from 1936 onward in specially designed, highly idealised showcases. These so-called ‘dioramas’ fuelled the imagination across generations as to what ‘wild’ Africa looked like.
Kenya, Vivienne von Wattenwyl, 1923 | Naturhistorisches Museum Bern
Rhino hunt
On 17 December 1924, Vivienne shot a rhinoceros at the 'Rhino Camp' reserve. In her memoirs, she wrote: '[N]o beast alive is more docile than a white rhino, and no shooting poorer sport. The difficulty was to find a good specimen, and much more, to remove the whole skin […].' Together with local helpers, she worked for days on the preservation of the specimen.
Rhinoceros at the site of the kill, Uganda, Vivienne de Watteville, 1924 | Naturhistorisches Museum Bern
Taxidermal preparation
In 1924-25, the hides and bones from 53 species and 134 specimens arrived at the museum in Bern, including the preserved parts of the rhinoceros shot by Vivienne de Watteville. To exhibit the animals, the taxidermist, Georg Ruprecht (1887-1968) made them appear 'lifelike' and 'alive' in accordance with contemporary taxidermal practice.
Taxidermied rhinoceros (southern white rhinoceros from South Africa, 1859), Bern, around 1930 | Naturhistorisches Museum Bern
Colonialism has also been a factor in climate change. The plantation economy and the extraction of raw materials harm the environment, and even today swallow up vast areas of forest. Deforestation returns the carbon stored by plants to the atmosphere, contributing greatly to the greenhouse effect.
The former colonies are particularly impacted by climate change, in the form of rising sea levels and droughts. In response, activists and international organizations call for climate justice.
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, scientists in Europe began developing ‘racial theories’; these explained the alleged superiority of the ‘white race’ no longer in religious but in ‘natural’ 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.
Today, the idea of ‘human races’ is officially refuted, thanks to genetic research.
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
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 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.
In the early 20th century, the emerging advertising industry and attractions such as ‘human zoos’ helped to create stereotype images of ‘others’, meaning people from colonial territories. School and children’s books, too, conveyed racist images.
The spread of stereotype and prejudiced images led to certain groups in Switzerland being perceived as ‘other’, among them Roma, Sinti, Yenish and Jewish people. Their day-to-day life was marked by expressions of racism, antisemitism, and discrimination.
The Village noir : a ‘human zoo’
The Black Village at the National Exhibition of 1896 in Geneva presented a group of some 227 people from what is now Senegal. In Switzerland, such displays continued to be organized until the 1960s. In them, the people on display were presented as inferior and ‘uncivilized’, seen through the racist lens of the time.
Affiches Camis, Paris. ‘N- Villages’ at the Swiss National Exhibition, 1896 | Bibliothèque de Genève
Lack of respect
The people on display were offered up to the curiosity of visitors, who were permitted to wander freely through the Village. For many visitors, this was the first time in their lives they had encountered black people. As such, they were constantly approached, pestered and sometimes even manhandled. The Freitags-Zeitung published one of the few articles criticizing the lack of respect shown by some members of the public, a theme that was taken up in French-speaking Switzerland by L’Helvétie: ‘One is truly concerned by the indelicacy and tactlessness of some so-called civilized Europeans.’
Antoine Chevalley, National Exhibition: Pleasure Garden (Black Village), 1896. Photograph | Bibliothèque de Genève
A living illusion
Designed primarily as an entertainment, the Village noir presented special events, such as the Muslim religious festival of ‘Tabaski’, or the baptism of a newborn, which were staged for commercial purposes. The set of the Village, in particular the mosque at its centre, was intended to create the illusion of a genuine encounter, although in fact it was a projection of the reality perceived by the colonizers and already shared by the public.
Émile Pricam. ‘The Mosque in the N- Village’, photograph, 1896 | Bibliothèque de Genève
Two villages contrasted
The Black Village stood alongside another major attraction of the National Exhibition of 1896: the Swiss Village, which showcased a shared Swiss national identity. It depicted a country populated by hard-working people living a simple and harmonious life in an Alpine setting. The image of an “exotic” and “uncivilized” Africa was also constructed through this contrast.
Published by N. Haussmann. Advertisement for the Black Village, 1896 | Bibliothèque de Genève
An ‘African Village’ in Lausanne
Populated by 70 to 100 people from Guinea and Senegal, then French colonies, the village is supposed to represent the African continent, erasing any regional or cultural particularities. The people on show were viewed through the prism of racist stereotypes.
André Kern, Village africain du Comptoir suisse, 1925, photograph | Musée Historique Lausanne
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
Read more: Whitey on the Moon & La tête dans le socle
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
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.
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.
The discussions address the following topics:
The speakers are individuals with knowledge and experience of these subjects.
Mischa Hedinger is a filmmaker. Driven by the question of what constructions and narratives shaped his image of Africa, he made the documentary "African Mirror" in 2019. In this film, Hedinger shows, using archival material from René Gardi, how Gardi significantly shaped the image of the African continent in Switzerland as a continent of Western desires, and how Gardi's ambivalent images often reflect the idea of European superiority. The film reveals that image-making is a form of colonialism that continues to this day.
Tarek Naguib focuses his research on anti-discrimination law. As a jurist, he examines colonial traces in Swiss law, which Naguib views as a reflection of societal relations but also as a force that shapes these relations. He is a co-founder of the Institute Neue Schweiz INES, the Alliance against Racial Profiling, and the Aktion Vierviertel initiative. Currently, he works as a coordinator for the NGO Platform Human Rights Switzerland, a civil society coalition of over 100 organizations that collectively advocate for the strengthening of human rights in Swiss domestic and foreign policy.
Anja Glover is a sociologist, author, podcaster, racism expert, diversity coach, and social entrepreneur. As an experienced speaker on topics such as anti-racism, sustainable cocoa production, the re-examination of colonialism, and other areas of social justice, Glover delivers insightful lectures aimed at raising awareness, motivating action, and promoting sustainable changes in businesses, educational institutions, and society. Anja Glover's lectures are based on research findings and real-world experiences, through which she aims to inform and inspire her audience to reflect. Additionally, Glover is the founder of the Schoggifestival Schweiz, co-founder of the Paname Academy as well as the Good Chocolate Hub, and co-curator of the exhibition "Blinde Flecken – Zurich and Colonialism" (2023).
Kanyana Mutombo holds a PhD in political science (Graduate Institute of International Studies, Geneva), and is a consultant and international expert on racism and discrimination. He was responsible for the UNESCO program to combat racism and discrimination. He developed innovative educational modules emphasizing the central importance of "Ubuntu" (meaning 'humanity' in Bantu languages) and the deconstruction of colonial concepts. Additionally, he is the Secretary General of the CRAN Observatory for Anti-Black Racism in Switzerland, founded in 2002, as well as the co-founder and director of the African Popular University (UPAF, founded in 2008 in Geneva), after having co-founded and directed the journal Regards Africains (1986-2005).
Martine Brunschwig Graf served as the President of the Federal Commission against Racism (FCR) from 2011 to 2023. During her presidency, issue 47 of the Tangram journal was published, focusing on Switzerland's colonial heritage, for which she also authored the editorial.
The aim of this Tangram edition is to examine Switzerland's colonial history and its continuities from various approaches and perspectives, ultimately highlighting gaps that still need to be addressed in science, education, and our general understanding of history.
Rachel M'Bon, born to a Congolese father and Swiss mother, was indirectly affected by colonialism but directly by its traces in Switzerland in the form of racism and discrimination. According to her, racism is closely linked to colonial imaginaries that are still embedded in collective memory. Alongside Juliana Fanjul, she co-directed the documentary "Je suis Noires", giving voice to six Swiss Black women who share their experiences of structural racism in Switzerland and their struggle for social recognition. Rachel M'Bon is also the founder of the organization "Now We Are Rising" (NWAR).
Matthieu Gillabert is a professor of contemporary history at the University of Fribourg and teaches at the Swiss Distance University. He has published numerous works on cultural exchange during the Cold War, on cultural and scientific diplomacy, and on cultural and educational relations between the Eastern Bloc and postcolonial countries. Furthermore, Gillabert has conducted research on the Francophone world from a postcolonial perspective and is interested in the history of Switzerland's colonial past and how it is remembered, particularly in the city of Neuchâtel. He is also co-author of the tour "Neuchâtel, empreintes coloniales," which is part of a series of actions by the city aimed at raising awareness of colonial history and promoting greater inclusion of all people in public spaces.
Rachel Huber holds a PhD in history. She is the co-author of the study "Zurich's Memory Culture," commissioned in 2023 by the Presidential Department. The evaluation provides insight into the various cultural memory actors from civil society, science, culture, and media, as well as politics and administration, who have shaped Zurich's historical images. It shows that many historical actors have been omitted in current historiography, and therefore, the plural history that Zurich actually has is not fully represented. The study aims to broaden the framework of discussion on who and how we remember in public spaces, offering design possibilities for memory cultures.
Denise Tonella has been the director of the Swiss National Museum since 2021. Previously, she was a historian, curator, and project leader for numerous exhibitions, such as those on the Renaissance, the history of the Middle Ages, the permanent exhibition "History of Switzerland," and the temporary exhibition "Women.Rights" at the National Museum Zurich. She regularly teaches at universities and serves as a specialist in Swiss history and women's history on various expert committees.
Esther Tisa Francini is a historian and head of the archives and provenance research at the Rietberg Museum in Zurich. She also curates exhibitions, the most recent being "Paths of Art – How Objects Come to the Museum" (2022-2024). From 2021 to 2024, she co-led the "Benin Initiative Switzerland" with Michaela Oberhofer, supported by the Federal Office of Culture, which investigated the provenance, i.e., the history of origin, of objects from the Kingdom of Benin in eight Swiss museums. The research, conducted in collaboration with Nigerian experts, not only explored the connection between the British looting of Benin in 1897 and the works in Switzerland but also clarified the meaning and function of the objects. Furthermore, it also addresses discussions about the future of collections, joint projects with Nigeria, and negotiation processes concerning restitution claims.
Davide Rodogno is a professor in the Department of History and International Politics at the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies (IHEID) in Geneva. He researches the history of philanthropic foundations and international public health since the 19th century. In March 2022, Rodogno, together with Professor Mohamed Mahmoud Mohamedou, published a study commissioned by the city of Geneva on its colonial past. In this study, they present a map that, for the first time, provides a comparative and historical inventory of the monuments and heritage of racism, colonialism, and slavery in the public space of the city of Geneva.
Alec von Graffenried has been the mayor of Bern since 2017. He is interested in researching the involvement of Old Bern in global colonial exploitation and the transatlantic slave trade. Based on these research findings, the history of the Old Confederation in the 17th and 18th centuries needs to be partly rewritten and reassessed. For the present day, he advocates for binding regulations regarding corporate responsibility in their international business relations (corporate responsibility).
Nicole Baur has been a member of the city council of Neuchâtel since 2021. Together with her colleagues, she works to raise awareness of her city's colonial past among the population and to make public spaces more inclusive. These measures, which arose from the 2020 "Black Lives Matter" demonstrations, led to two petitions to the authorities, one calling for the removal of the statue of David de Pury and the other demanding "respect for our history." The petitions have since been archived.
Fabio Rossinelli has been a historian with a PhD since 2020 and works on various projects supported by the Swiss National Science Foundation, while also serving as a lecturer at the University of Lausanne. Beyond European archives, Rossinelli investigates Switzerland's role in 19th-century colonial imperialism, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa. He has published several articles and a monograph in which he explores the question of the state's global entanglements, placing particular emphasis on the inclusion of local narratives, knowledge, methods, and sources. He is also the co-curator of the exhibition "Mémoires. Genève dans le monde colonial" at the Ethnographic Museum of Geneva.
Rita Kesselring holds a PhD in ethnology and has been an associate professor of Urban Studies at the University of St. Gallen since 2022. She focuses on global asymmetrical dependencies, their consequences in the Global South, and possibilities for change. In her dissertation, Kesselring examined legal recourse as a means of redress, using the example of apartheid victims and their class-action lawsuits against Western companies. Kesselring, who lived in Zambia for her habilitation, studied life in the mining town of Solwezi in Zambia, near Africa’s largest copper mine, and how it is connected to the Swiss commodity trading hub. She is a member of KEESA (Campaign for Debt Cancellation and Compensation in Southern Africa) and a co-signatory of SCORES (Swiss Committee for the Reparation of Slavery).
Rohit Jain is a social anthropologist and artistic researcher. He is a lecturer at the University of Bern specializing in migration, postcolonialism, racism, as well as public and global popular culture. He has also researched and published on Indian diaspora politics, urban citizenship, gold trade, memory politics, and cultural participation. In his research and political interventions, he collaborates with communities, artists, researchers, and civil society organizations to integrate marginalized knowledge into public and multi-voiced negotiations. Rohit Jain is a co-founder of the Institut Neue Schweiz INES, the Berner Rassismusstammtisch collective, and the long-term artistic-political project "Schwarzenbach Komplex".
Sacha Zala is a PhD historian and titular professor of Swiss and contemporary general history at the University of Bern. In his research, Zala investigates Switzerland's integration into the system of international relations. Since 2008, he has been the director of the Diplomatic Documents of Switzerland research center (Dodis), an institute of the Swiss Academy of Humanities and Social Sciences (SAGW). Dodis' main goal is to provide research and the public with a selection of official sources to illustrate and better understand Switzerland's foreign relations and its dense transnational connections.
