Remote Encounters of a Distant Kind: Natives and Westerners in Adam Smith’s International Thought

Our paper focuses on Smith's treatment of the relationship between colonist and colonized in his work. Although this issue has already been the focus of previous research, it has mainly been considered through the question of whether Smith was an anti-colonial thinker. This is both an important and fascinating question, but we believe that it does not exhaust all discussion on the subject. Here, we will first show that there is no discussion on the fact that Smith was highly critical of Western colonialism. According to him, it was essentially motivated by greed and doomed conquered population to "dreadful misfortunes". We will then look at the many comparisons Smith made between natives and westerners, from a military, economic and moral viewpoint. If the economic, military and more globally "civilizational" comparison clearly turns to the advantage of Europe, that of morals is much more balanced, Smith weighing insistently the superior self-command and magnanimity of "savages" against the civilized man's better propensity to sympathetic relations. Lastly, we will try to explain why Europeans seem to have lost their virtues of humanity through contact with the overseas populations, in other words why they do not feel any sympathy for their unfortunate fate.