Black Archive Alliance Catalogue

Throughout the Italian colonial period
in East Africa, postcards and stamps
were produced as a form of propaganda,
displaying a version of Eastern Africa
through the Italian lens. This was often
done by portraying the African locals
in a dehumanized and sexualized manner.
Examining several series of these objects
created by a range of illustrators of
the time and mass produced and sent
internationally from the African colonies
to Italy, we uncover a range of important
themes and trends that characterize the
representation of the colonial peoples.
Numerous examples of these objects many
of which were realized by the Poste
Italiane are currently a part of numerous
public and private collections and
provide insight to the role of images
created to cross international borders
enticing young soldiers to come abroad
and comforting the families of loved
ones who corresponded long distance.
Dehumanization is a theme among all the
collections of postcards and stamps.
In a series of postcards produced by
Edizione D’Arte V. E. Boeri illustrated
by D’Ercoli portraying African soldiers
look identical to one another in terms
of body type, bone structure, uniform,
skin tone and facial expression. This
effectively deprives each soldier of
their individuality, and infers that
they are one of many replaceable units.
This notion is extended through the text
that reads, “Forti Come Noi, Piu di Noi
No” (“Strong like us, Not stronger than
us”). Furthermore, in several images,
large birds, and are portrayed as if
the animals themselves. Because there
the African soldiers, the emphasis is
on the connection between the men and
the animals. One image is of several
soldiers in the foreground, running with
there are what look to be copies of
the same soldier, but translucent,
and fading into the landscape. This
symbolic disappearance or lack of full
presence seems to amplify the soldier’s
disposability and lack of full humanity.
A separate series of Postcards
produced by Bonoro is characterized
by East African women in front of lush
landscapes, the women are dehumanized
in a similar way. Although they don’t
literally blend into the landscape,
as the soldiers did in the previous
collection, they are portrayed as
synonymous with the lush and unspoiled
nature that surrounds them. This is
a common theme among the writing and
art of Italy’s colonies during the
colonial period.
Both African men and women were
frequently portrayed as reduced to their
physical bodies by white people hence
explicitly sexualized in the colonial
period and their images were often used
as visuals for to lure soldiers, many
of which were illiterate to come to the
colonies. African women were depicted as
animalistic, hypersexualized and servile
in these images which created the idea
that they are available for sexual
exploitation. These images created a
fantasy for Italian soldiers of an erotic
‘other’ and created a promise of sexual
opportunities. The “otherized”African
women were not portrayed as ‘women’
but ‘females’ fostering the capacity
of Italian men to come to the colonies
and disregard the norms and values of
society that they typically adhered
to. This fantasy created an outlet
onto which Europe could project it’s
forbidden sexual desires. Acts of
pedophilia which were frowned upon in
Italy were acceptable in the colonies
because these women were seen as full
grown at a far earlier age based in part
on differentiating customs for marriage
and a less than human status. This
misrepresentation of East African women
to the Italian soldiers has consequences
that last through today.
Yet another series of images signed B.
Incegnoli examine the heroicizing of
Many of these images portray Ethiopian
soldiers as an animalistic ‘other’ which
making it “natural” they needed to be
controlled and tamed. The “savagery” of
Julia Snyder, Sarina
Patel, Willa Konsmo
Professor Pesarini
Black Italia
New York University
Florence
Italian Colonial
Postcards and Stamps