If Europe made itself the future, what followed was not immediate conquest, but something subtler.

When sequence becomes hierarchy, hierarchy begins to normalize replacement.

In the previous column, we saw how a growing strand of European thought reframed history as linear, progressive, and directional. Europe’s trajectory increasingly became the template against which other societies were measured. Once Europe positioned itself at the leading edge of history, others could be described as occupying earlier stages of development.¹

But sequence alone does not displace. It prepares the ground for it.

To understand how displacement became thinkable, we must examine a deeper conceptual structure — one that long predated European expansion but provided powerful habits of thought.

Christian theology had long contained a pattern of fulfillment: promise and completion, shadow and substance, old covenant and new.² In sacred history, what comes later fulfills what came before. The new covenant does not merely coexist with the old; it supersedes it. What is fulfilled becomes preparatory. What is completed replaces what was incomplete.

Within theology, this structure concerned divine revelation, not political power. But conceptual habits rarely remain confined to their original domains. Over time, the grammar of fulfillment could be translated into civilizational thinking.

What comes later is fuller.What comes earlier is provisional.What fulfills supersedes.

This theological grammar did not automatically produce imperialism. But it made replacement feel natural.

If later equals fuller, then earlier equals incomplete.If fulfillment has arrived, what preceded it becomes preparatory.If development culminates, what does not culminate must lag.

A growing strand of Enlightenment historiography would later articulate this more explicitly through stadial theories of progress. Thinkers such as Adam Ferguson and William Robertson described societies as moving through developmental stages from “rude” or “savage” conditions toward commercial and civil maturity.³ These theories were not identical to racial ideology, but they provided a framework for ranking civilizations along a single line of advancement.⁴

What mattered was not simply that Europe was powerful. It was that Europe increasingly interpreted its power as evidence of culmination.

Europe did not invent the idea of succession; many civilizations have imagined themselves central to history. What distinguished early modern Europe was the scale of its global reach and its ability to universalize its historical narrative.⁵

In this framework, civilizations could be positioned the way covenants once were.

Europe could be seen as fulfillment.Africa could be acknowledged — but as earlier.Historical — but preparatory.Existing — but not authoritative.

Replacement is more powerful than erasure.

Erasure denies existence. Replacement acknowledges existence but denies centrality.

Africa could have kingdoms.Africa could have legal systems.Africa could have intellectual traditions.

But Europe had culmination.

This distinction made displacement appear less like theft and more like succession.

When a mature stage supersedes an immature one, replacement appears inevitable. When progress is assumed to be directional, resistance appears regressive.

This logic did not require cruelty. It required sequencing.

It allowed Europeans to encounter African societies not as contemporaries, but as precursors. It framed intervention as improvement and domination as advancement.

The language of fulfillment slowly gave way to the language of progress, but the structure remained intact.

Theological supersessionism had concerned covenant. Civilizational supersessionism concerned history.

Once later is assumed to be better, earlier becomes expendable.

This shift did not yet produce racial slavery. But it made displacement coherent.

It prepared the imagination to accept that some societies could be replaced without injustice — because replacement was part of historical maturation.

The next step would be more decisive still.

If civilizations can be ranked, so can people.

Jack Goody, The Theft of History (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006).

Jack Goody, The Theft of History (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006).

R. Kendall Soulen, The God of Israel and Christian Theology (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1996).

R. Kendall Soulen, The God of Israel and Christian Theology (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1996).

Adam Ferguson, An Essay on the History of Civil Society (Edinburgh, 1767).

Adam Ferguson, An Essay on the History of Civil Society (Edinburgh, 1767).

Ronald L. Meek, Social Science and the Ignoble Savage (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1976).

Ronald L. Meek, Social Science and the Ignoble Savage (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1976).

J.G.A. Pocock, Barbarism and Religion, vol. 1 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999).

J.G.A. Pocock, Barbarism and Religion, vol. 1 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999).

Ferguson, Adam. An Essay on the History of Civil Society. Edinburgh, 1767.

Goody, Jack. The Theft of History. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006.

Meek, Ronald L. Social Science and the Ignoble Savage. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1976.

Pocock, J.G.A. Barbarism and Religion. Vol. 1. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999.

Soulen, R. Kendall. The God of Israel and Christian Theology. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1996.

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