Introduction In recent years, it is being commonly suggested that the Era of Exploration, as we know it, was nothing but geopolitical extrapolation of Europeans’ greediness, therefore, it should be considered as “evil” by definition. We are being told that ships, filled with uneducated White “rednecks”, went sailing around the world, while wreaking havoc upon peaceful and culturally excelled savages in Africa and America, for which White people in Western countries are now supposed to be filled with the sense of historical guilt. The so-called “White man’s burden” of spreading the light of civilization to people that were never able to evolve beyond the Stone Age, over the course of millennia, is now being referred to as the expression of White people’s innate sense of racial intolerance. However, when we take a closer look at the issue, such suggestions will appear as nothing but the gross distortion of historical truth. It was not the prospect of making quick commercial profits alone, which prompted European adventurers to embark on exploration of unknown lands, but also their utter sense of existential curiosity. Ever since the time of Columbus, European explorers began to make landfalls all over the previously unknown parts of the world, only to find the natives in newly discovered lands leading an utterly primitive mode of existence, with the difference between these natives and animals being practically non-existent. However, given White people’s inborn sense of idealism, they tried their best to think of natives as human beings, despite the fact that these natives hardly qualified for it. Between 17 th and 19 th centuries, White colonizers would often experience a psychological split in their personalities, because – on one hand, they strived to think of natives as underdeveloped, but still humans (Christianity), but on the other, they had a hard time, while resisting the temptation to use them as slaves. Therefore, it was only natural for the European literature of the time to actually reflect these subconscious longings, on the part of White people. The reading of Jonathan Swift’s “A Voyage to the Country of the Houyhnhnms” and Aphra Behn’s “Oroonoko”, substantiates the validity of this statement. Whereas, Behn positions herself as spokesman for European imperialism, despite the fact that she tries to promote essentially humanist ideas, Swift disposes of irrational humanism altogether, while adopting a scientific outlook on the objective essence of socio-political realities. At the same time, both authors assume a superiority of White people as self-evident paradigm. In the next part of this paper, we will discuss this thesis at length. Discussion Part 1 There can be no doubt as to the fact that apparent dramatism of Aphra Behn’s novel was meant to serve purely the purposes of entertainment. In it, Behn relates the story of African king’s son being tricked into the slavery and eventually murdered, without placing any political accents onto story’s actual content. It cannot escape readers attention that, while describing Oroonoko’s misadventures, Behn does not imply the concept of slavery being wicked in its very essence, which greatly differs “Oroonoko” from abolitionist literary pieces, written in later years. We can s