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7. r(i
i.
NEGRO’S PLACE
IN
BY
JAMES HUNT, Ph.D,, F.S.A., F.R.S.L., F.A.S.L.,
FOREIGN ASSOCIATE OF THE ANTHROPOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF PARIS,
HONORARY FELLOW OF THE ETHNOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF LONDON,
CORRESPONDING MEMBER OF THE UPPER HESSE SOCIETY FOR NATURAL AND MEDICAL SCIENCE,
ETC., BTC.
AND PRESIDENT OF THE ANTHROPOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF LONDON.
[Read before the Anthropological Society of London,
Nov. 17th, 1863.]
LONDON:
PUBLISHED FOR THE ANTHROPOLOGICAL SOCIETY,
BY
TEUBNER AND CO., 60, PATERNOSTER ROW.
��vii
DEDICATION.
men who are competent to give any decided opinion as to the
value of my communication. We have had plenty of African
travellers, but there is perhaps no other man living who, by
previous education and study, is better able than yourself to
paint the Negro and other African races as they exist, regard
less of what we may consider should'be their state.
I was necessarily confined to a limited space in my paper,
but you will see that I have added notes in support of my
views. I have also thought it desirable to print all the import
ant passages in M. Pruner Bey’s admirable Memoir on this
subject. As Physician to the Viceroy of Egypt, he had
ample opportunities of studying the anatomy and physiology
of the Negro. The only part of his paper I have omitted is
some descriptive matter relating to the variety of races in
Africa: not the object of the present inquiry. I shall feel
grateful if you will state my great obligations to the author
of Wanderings in West Africa, should you meet with its accom
plished, agreeable, and unbiassed author.
In conclusion, I am glad to inform you that the Society whose
birth you witnessed only requires one thing for its complete
success, viz., that you should return to England and give to
Anthropology not only the benefit of your large stores of
knowledge, but also that you should preside over the affairs of
a Society destined under such a Presidency to accomplish
the great and important objects for which it was established.
Believe me,
My dear Burton,
Yours very faithfully,
JAMES HUNT.
Ore House, Hastings, England.
December 9, 1863.
N.B.—I ought to tell you that I had a goodly number of
supporters among the audience at Newcastle ; and amongst
numerous letters I have since received, I give the following
extract from a letter, just written to me by a lady who as-
�viii
DEDICATION.
sisted in the microscopical investigations of some scientific
men in the Confederate States of America.
Some of the
notes taken on the occasion referred to were to the following
effect:—
“ The skeleton of the Negro can never be placed upright. There is always
a slight angle in the legs, a greater in the thigh bones and still more in the body,
until in some instances it curves backwards. All the bones of the legs are
flattened and wider than in the European ; and the arm-bones have always a
tendency to fall forward, while the head stoops from the shoulders, and not
from the neck, as in other nations. To make the skeleton stand equal in its
weight on all parts, you must give it these inclinations.
“ The blood is vastly dissimilar,—the red corpuscles are greatly in excess,
and the colourless have an extraordinary tendency to run together: the mole
cular movement within the discs differs in every respect, and when tried with
a solution of potass, the protrusions from the cell-walls take every inter
mediate form, reverting with great rapidity to the normal condition. It is
an attested fact, that if there is a drop of African blood in the system of a
white person, it will show itself upon the scalp. The greater the proximity,
the darker the hue, the larger the space : there may not be the slightest,
taint perceptible in any other part of the body, but this spot can never be
wiped out, no intervening time will ever efface it; and it stands in the courts
of law in the Southern Confederacy as a never-failing test, unimpeachable as
a law of Nature.
“Their eyesight decays very early, failing generally after thirty, but
very few become totally blind; and in the three instances I ever met, they
were blind to light, but found their way easily through the streets and over
their dwellings during the hours of darkness. The hair is very peculiar;
*
three hairs, springing from different orifices, will unite into one; it is very
friable, like moss, the ends splitting up.”
The above intelligent remarks, although they contain nothing
new, are chiefly valuable from the fact that ladies in the Con
federate States seem to be better informed on the subject than
many men of science in this country.
In time the truth will come out, and then the public will have
their eyes opened, and will see in its true dimensions that
gigantic imposture known by the name of “ Negro Emancipa
tion.”—J. H.
* See, also on this, the able memoir by M. Pruner-Bey, communicated to
the Anthropological Society of Paris: De la chevelure nornrrn' caractdristique
des races humaines, d’apres des recherches micros copiques. 8vo. Paris, 1863,
�ON
THE NEGRO’S PLACE IN NATURE.
I propose in this communication to discuss the physical and
mental characters of the Negro, with a view of determining not
only his position in animated nature, but also the station to
be assigned to him in the genus homo. I shall necessarily have
to go over a wide field, and cannot hope to treat the subject in
an exhaustive manner. I shall be amply satisfied if I succeed in
directing the attention of my scientific friends to a study of
this most important and hitherto nearly neglected branch of
the great science of Anthropology.
It is not a little remarkable that the subject I propose to
bring before you this evening is one which has never been dis
cussed before a scientific audience in this Metropolis. In
France, in America, and in Germany, the physical and mental
characters of the Negro have been frequently discussed, and
England alone has neglected to pay that attention to the
question which its importance demands. I shall, therefore,
make no apology for bringing this subject in its entirety
under your consideration, although I should have preferred
discussing each point in detail. I hope, however, this even
ing to bring before you facts and opinions that will lay a good
foundation for future inquiry and discussion. Although I shall
dwell chiefly on the physical, mental, and moral characters of
the Negro, I shall, at the same time, not hesitate to make
such practical deductions as appear to be warranted from the
facts we now have at hand, and trust that a fair and open
discussion of this subject may eventually be the means of re
moving much of the misconception which appears to prevail on
this subject both in the minds of the public, and too frequently
in the minds of scientific men. While, however, I shall honestly
B
�2
ON THE NEGRO’S PLACE IN NATURE.
and without reservation state the conclusions at which I have
arrived, I shall at the same time listen with deep attention and
respect to those who differ from me, and who support their
opinions by facts, by the opinions of some travellers, or by
their own observations. Heretofore, however, it has hap
pened that much human passion has been introduced, not only
into public discussions, but especially into the literature on this
subject. Even such a generally fair and philosophic writer as
Professor Waitz has accused men of science with promulgating
*
scientific views which are practically in favour of the so-called
“ slavery” of the Confederate States of America. Many other
scientific men could be named who have equally been guilty of
imputing such unfair and uncharitable motives. While, on
the other hand, writers who are thus accused retort by apply
ing to their opponents all sorts of epithets. One author, for
instance, exclaims : “ How I loathe that hypocrisy which claims
the same mental, moral, and physical equality for the Negro
which the whites possess.”-)- No good can come of discussion
conducted in such a spirit. If we wish to discover what is the
truth, we must give each other credit for scientific honesty, and
not impute base or interested motives.
In the first place, I would explain that I understand by
Negro, the dark, woolly-headed African found in the neighbour
hood of the Congo river. Africa contains, like every other
continent, a large number of different races, and these have
become very much mixed. These races may be estimated as a
whole at about 150 millions, occupying a territory of between
13 and 14 millions of square miles. I shall not enter into any
disquisition as to the great diversity of physical conformation
that is found in different races, but shall simply say that my
remarks will be confined to the typical woolly-headed Negro.
Not only is there a large amount of mixed blood in Africa, but
there are also apparently races of very different physical characters, and in as far as they approach the typical Negro, so
* See Introduction to Anthropology, edited from the first volume of
Anthropologie der Naturvolker, by J.Frederick Collingwood, F.R.S.L., F.G.S.,
F.A.S.L., and Hon. Sec. of the Anthropological Soc. of Lond., 1863, p. 92.
f Negro Mania: being an examination of the falsely assumed equality of
the various races of man; by John Campbell, Philadelphia, 1851, p. 11.
�ON THE NEGRO’S PLAGE IN NATURE.
3
far will my remarks apply to them. But I shall exclude en
tirely from consideration all those who have European, Asiatic,
Moorish or Berber blood in their veins.
My object is to attempt to determine the position which one
well-defined race occupies in the genus homo, and the relation
or analogy which the negro race bears to animated nature
generally- We have recently heard discussions respecting
Man’s place in nature : but it seems to me that we err in
grouping all the different races of Man under one generic
name, and then compare them with the anthropoid Apes.
If we wish to make any advance in discussing such a subject,
we must not speak of man generally, but must select one race
or species, and draw our comparison in this manner. I shall
adopt this plan in comparing the Negro with the European, as
represented by the German, Frenchman, or Englishman. Our
object is not to support some foregone conclusion, but to en
deavour to ascertain what is the truth by a careful and con
scientious examination and discussion of the facts before us.
In any conclusion I may draw respecting the Negro’s cha
racter, no decided opinion will be implied as to the vexed ques
tion of man’s origin. If the negro could be proved to be a
distinct species from the European, it would not follow that
they had not the same origin—it would only render their
identity of origin less likely. I shall, also, have to dwell
much on the analogies existing between the Negro and the
Anthropoid Apes; but these analogies do not necessarily in
volve relationship. The Negro race, in some of its characters,
is the lowest of existing races, while in others it approaches
the highest type of European : and this is the case with other
savage races. We find the same thing in the Anthropoid Apes,
where some species resemble man in one character and some in
another.
The father of English Ethnology, Dr. Prichard, thought that
the original pair must have been Negroes, and that mankind
descended from them. His words are: —“ It must be con
*
cluded that the process of nature in the human species is the
transmutation of the characters of the Negro into those of the
* Researches into the Physical History of Mankind, 1813, p. 233.
B 2
�4
ON THE NEGEO’s PLACE IN NATUEE.
European, or the evolution of white varieties in black races of
men. We have seen that there are causes existing which are
capable of producing such an alteration, but we have no facts
which induce us to suppose that the reverse of this change
could in any circumstance be effected. This leads us to the in
ference that the primitive stock of men were Negroes, which
has every appearance of truth/’ It is not a little remarkable
that although Blumenbach and Prichard were both advocates
for the unity of man, they materially differed in their argu
ments. Blumenbach saw, in his five varieties of man, nothing
but degeneracy from some ideal perfect type. Prichard, on
the contrary, asserted he could imagine no arguments, or knew
of no facts, to support such a conclusion. Prichard, however,
was not alone in this supposition; for Pallas, Lacepede,f
*
Hunter, J Joornik§, and Link,|| were also inclined to the same
view. We muSt^not dwell on such speculations; for on the
present occasion we shall not touch on the origin of man: it
will be enough if we assist in removing some of the mis
conceptions regarding the Negro-race existing in the minds
of some men of science. It is too generally taught that
the Negro only differs from the European in the colour of his
skin and the peculiarity of his hair; but such opinions are not
supported by facts. The skin and hair are by no means the
only characters which distinguish the Negro from the European,
even physically; and the difference is greater, mentally and
morally, than the demonstrated physical difference. In the
first place, what are the physical distinctions between the
Negro and the European ?*
§
* Travels through the Southern Provinces of the Russian Empire, in 1793-4.
t Vue Generate, etc. Paris, 1822.
’
j Disputatio inauguralis de Hominum Varietatibus et earum causis exponens
etc. Joannes Hunter. Edinburgh, 1775.
’
§ Wysgeerig-natuurkunding Onderaoek, etc. Amst., 1808.
|| On this point Link (Die Urwelt, etc.,Berlin, 1821-2) says
Soemmerings
investigations (Die Korperliche Verschiedenheit des Negers, Frankfurt,
1785,) show how much more the Negro in his internal structure resembles the
Ape than the European. The latest productions of the animal world were
mammals, and it stands to reason that the most recent race should be that
which is the most remote from the other mammals, and that race should be
the oldest which approaches them most, namely, the Negro. Colour- also
confirms tliis everywhere, when we observe white and black animals of the
same species. The latter always form the original stock, the former the
deviation.”
�ON THE NEGRO’S PLACE IN NATURE.
5
The average height of the Negro is less than that of the
*
European, and although there are occasionally exceptions, the
* “ The stature of the Negro approaches the middle size. The tribes above
the middle stature are probably more numerous than those below it. I know
of no instances of dwarfism among Negroes, though, the monuments of Egypt
show that there were dwarfs among the Negroes at. a very remote epoch.
Nevertheless, giants and dwarfs occupy a certain place in the ideas and stories
of the Negro, as well as tailed men. We know what to believe as regards
the latter point. With respect to dwarfs, the Bosjesmen seem to answer the
ideas of the Negroes, for they play in their stories the same part as the
Hyperboreans in the traditions of ancient Greece. _ Obesity is exceptionafiy
found in males of high rank, and more frequently in the women. The dis
position to grow fat is less rare among the short than among the tall Negroes.
The taller are frequently lank and very angular.
“ On examining the physiognomy of the Negro, I would first observe that
the palpebral fissure is narrow and horizontal; but the aperture of the nostrils
presents instead of a raised triangle a tranverse ellipsis; that the point of the
nose is obtuse, round, and thick; that the ear is small, detached from the
head, with a lobule little separated. To this must be added the cheeks
stuffed by the masseters, the conformation of the jaws and lips, and the
ensemble of the physiognomy of the Negro presents a singular mixture. The
inferior part reflects sensuality, not to say more; above the mouth we might
say it is the face of a new-born child enlarged. The absence of expi’ession
in the features produces the effect of an unfinished work. The change of
colour, so significant in the white man, that mute language, but more effective
than the spoken word which moves us, is almost entirely absent in our
African brothers. The black veil which covers the whole,_ even withdraws
the play of the muscles from the eye of the observer, unless it be in moments
of passionate agitation.
.
_
“ The eye alone enables us to judge what passes in the depth of the mind.
This mirror is sufficiently bright to enable us to distinguish two classes,
which may be compared to the choleric and phlegmatic temperaments. The
travellers who have observed the Negro in his native country indicate some
expressive, and, so to say, national shades, which distinguish the peoples of
the Sudan. This is in harmony with the differences in features, stature,
we shall speak of in the sequel. We find thus among the authors the terms,
“dignified and proud, jovial and gay, intelligent and cunning;” also,
“ insignificant and inexpressive, melancholy and morose, dull and stupid.”
Thus the Negro participates also in this respect largely of the nature of man
in general; but it cannot be said of him what was applied to the American,
“ Gentleness hovers on his lips, and ferocity gushes from his eyes.”
“ The neck of the Negro is generally short; it is scarcely 8 to 9 centimetres,
excepting very tall subjects, when it attains 10 centimetres; the prominence
of the larynx is rounded; the shoulders are less powerful than in the Turanian
or Aryan. The Negro prefers carrying his burden on the head. The Negro
is shrunk in the flank, the abdomen frequently relaxed; the umbilicus,
situated nearer the pubis than in the European, is slightly prominent.
“ After these short remarks on the conformation of the trunk, we must fix
our attention on the limbs. AVc have already indicated the proportion of the
parts which compose them. It now remains to describe their particular form.
The arm and the forearm of the Negro present neither the muscular contours
of the European nor the rounded shape of the American. The palm of the
hand, as well as the sole of the foot, are always of a bistre colour. The palm
is narrow and flattened; that is to say, the thenar and hypothenar eminences,
as well as the tactile cushions, are little developed. The folds of the palm
are very simple and rudimentary. The fingers are elongated; of little thick
ness at the ends ; the nails are flat, bistre coloured, and rather widened at the
end.
“ In the inferior limb we observe the fold of the buttocks less rounded, the
�6
ON THE NEGRO'S PLACE IN NATURE.
skeleton of the Negro is generally heavier, and the bones larger
and thicker in proportion to the muscles than those of the Euro
pean. The bones are also whiter, from the greater abundance of
calcareous salts. The thorax is generally laterally compressed,
and, in thin individuals, presents a cylindrical form, and is
smaller in proportion to the extremities. The extremities of the
Negro differ from other races more by proportion than by form :
the arm usually reaches below the middle of the femur. The leg
is on the whole longer, but is made to look short on account of
the ankle being only between lgin. to l^in, above the ground;
this character is often seen in mulattoes. The foot is flat, and
the heel is both flat and long. Burmeister has pointed out the
resemblance of the foot and the position of the toes of the
Negro to those of the ape. The toes are small, the first sepathighs more angular' in front and specially at the back; the knees approxi
mated ; the calf usually weak, short, and laterally compressed; the feet spread
out; the heel wide and prominent; the lateral borders of the feet straight,
their anterior portion widened; the great toes short and small. The foot is
rarely highly arched; on the other hand it is elongated, and what it wants in
height is made up by the tibia, which is longer in proportion.
“ This conformation of the foot of the Negro has induced a learned
naturalist to take the foot as the starting point to fix the type of races. But
the particulars given by M. Simonot, on the diversities met with in this re
spect among the peoples of the Senegal, which accord with the reports of
other travellers and my own observations, throw doubt upon the constancy of
the conformation. On the other hand, it is certain that the type of the inferior
limb, as I have described it, is the appanage of the majority of Negroes. The
flat foot is, however, also met with in a large number of races approaching
more the Aryan than the Negro; for instance, in some tribes of America and
Polynesia. It is also frequent in Russia, and it frequently influences the re
form of the military service in the rest of Europe. The shortening of the
great toe, combined with a slight distance from the rest, has been noted in
the Negro, in some races of Malaisia, and the Hottentot as a constant character
approaching these peoples to the ape. The importance of the great toe is in
contestable, for it is the first bone which disappears from the extremities on
descending the animal series. I think it therefore necessary well to examine
this point as regards the Negro. Now it is true that the great toe in the
Negro rarely rises above the second, but neither is it often shorter. This
applies also to the pretended lateral distance which may moreover be owing
to the employment of thongs in their shoes, as done by the Arabs, for instance.
It is clear that all that has been asserted relative to the opposition of the
great toe of the Negro is reduced to the simple question : Is there a muscle,
or at least an aponeurotic tendon, subservient to this pretended use ? No
where, and never has anything like it been discovered in the human genus.
But a slight shortening of the great toe undoubtedly exists, not merely among
the Negro tribes, but also in ancient and modern Egyptians, and even in
some of the most beautiful types of Caucasian females I have seen. This
character is not merely constant in the ancient Egyptian statues, it is also
seen where art has fixed the characters of the ideal man, namely, in the
sculptures of Greece. I am, however, as far from wishing to establish the
identity of the foot of the Negro with that ideal type, as I am to class the
inhabitants of Alsace among the Negroes, because many of them present
the same peculiarity. (Pruner Bey. Memoire sur les Negres, 1861.)
�ON THE NEGROES PLACE IN NATURE.
7
rated from the second by a free space.
*
Many observers have
noticed the fact that the Negro frequently uses the great toe as
a thumb. The knees are rather bent, the calves are little deve
loped and the upper part of the thigh rather thin. The upper
thigh-bone of the Negro has not so decided a resemblance to
the ape as that of the bushman.j- He rarely stands quite up
right, his short neck and large development of the cervical
muscles give great strength to the neck. The shoulders, arms,
and legs are all weak in comparison to the corresponding limbs
in the European. The hand is always relatively larger than in
* “ In most of the Africans the heel projects. From the skin of their feet
being often of a horny hardness, sandals appear to me much better adapted
than the shoe, as it allows of greater flexibility and movement. Lawrence
in his ‘ Lectures on Man’ says, that the calves of the leg in the Negro race
are very high, so as to encroach upon the hams. His observation I can fully
corroborate, as well as Dr. Winterbottom’s remark respecting the largeness
of the feet, and the thinness and flexibility of the fingers and toes.”—Sierra
Leone, by Kobert Clarke, p. 49. Mr. Louis Fraser also says, “ He will pick up
the most minute object with his toes; his 'great’ toe is particularly flexible.”
t “ It is quite certain that the ape which most nearly approaches man, in
the totality of its organisation, is either the chimpanzee or the gorilla.; and
as it makes no practical difference, for the purposes of my present argument
which is selected for comparison, on the one hand, with man, and on the
other hand, with the rest of the primates, I shall select the latter (so far as
its organisation is known) as a brute now so celebrated in prose and verse,
that all must have heard of him, and have formed some conception of his
appearance. I shall take up as many of the most important points of differ
ence between man and this remarkable creature, as the space at my disposal
will allow me to discuss, and the necessities of the argument demand; and I
shall inquire into the value and magnitude of these differences, when placed
side by side with those which separate the gorilla from other animals of the
same order. In the general proportions of the body and limbs there is a re
markable difference between the gorilla and man, which at once strikes the
eye. The gorilla’s brain-case is smaller, its trunk larger, its lower limbs
shorter, its upper limbs longer in proportion than those of man. I find that
the vertebral column of a full-grown gorilla, in the Museum of the Royal
College of Surgeons, measures 27 inches along its anterior curvature, from
the upper edge of the atlas or first vertebra of the neck to the lower ex
tremity of the sacrum; that the arm, without the hand, is 31) inches long;
that the leg, without the foot, is 26) inches long; that the hand is
inches
long; the foot 11.) inches long. In other words, taking the length of the
spinal column as 100, the arm equals 115, the leg 96, the hand 36, and the
foot 41. In the skeleton of a male Bosjesman, in the same collection, the
proportions, by the same measurement, to the spinal column taken as 100,
are—the arm 78, the leg 110, the hand 26, and the foot 32. In a woman of
the same race the arm 83, and the leg 120, the hand and foot remaining the
same. In a European skeleton I find the arm to be 80, the leg 117, the hand
26, the foot 35. Thus the leg is not so different as it looks at first sight, in
its proportions to the spine in the gorilla and in the man, being very slightly
shorter than the spine in the former, and between one-tenth and one-fifth
longer than the spine in the latter. The foot is longer and the hand much
longer in the gorilla; but the great difference is caused by the arms, which
are very much longer than the spine in the gorilla, very much shorter than
the spine in the man.”—Evidence as to Man’s Place in Nature, by T. H.
Huxley, 1863, p. 70.
�8
ON THE NEGRO’S PLACE IN NATURE.
the European : the palm is flat, the thumb narrow, long, and
very weak.
It will be seen from Dr. Pruner Bey’s table that the humerus
and the femur in the Negro and European, of equal height, are
shorter in the Negro than in the European: while the tibia,
the foot, the radius, and the hand are more elongated than in
the Negro race. That the fingers and arms are longer has
long been affirmed, and Negroes are quite conscious of this
fact, but we have to thank Dr. Pruner Bey for the absolute
*
proof.
The great distinguishing characters of the Negro are the fol
lowing’ : the forehead is flat, low, and laterally compressed. The
nose and whole face is flattened, and the Negro thus has a facial
angle generally between 70-75 degs., occasionally only 65 degs.
The nasal cavities and the orbits are spacious.f The skull is very
* M. Pruner gives the following measures of the bones of the limbs in
centimeters.
Designation
of
Measures.
Mean Measures.
Negroes.
Europeans
Individual Measures.
Negroes.
Males.! Fe Males. Fe Man.
males.
males.
Total height of Skeleton.... 160'04 148'66 172'23
Femur................................... 44'72, 42.50 47'00
38'09 35'33 38 76
Tibia........................
I.ength of foot ................... 24'50 21'83 25'00
31'27. 29'50 33'72
H umerus........ .
Radius.................................. 24'63; 23'00 25'46
Length of hand................... 18'54! 17'00 18'84
164'42 160'0
44'00 43'0
37'71 39'0
23'37 23'5
34'57 31'5
24'85 24'5
18'14 19'0
Europeans.
Wo
man. Man.
Wo New Child
born
man. Infant 5 yrs.
old.
1560
41'5
38'5
21'5
31'0
25 0
18'0
157'0
42'0
360
23 0
31'0
21'0
17'0
160'0
45 0
36 0
240
34'0
27'0
20'0
42'25
67
6'0
1010
25 0
220
2
*
6
5'75
18'0
13'0
N.B.—“ The preceding measures having been taken on skeletons, are only
strictly correct as regards the isolated bones: femur, tibia, humerus, and
radius. The lengths of hand and foot, and the total height of the skeleton,
can only be approximative, as they are more or less modified by the mounters
of the skeletons.
“ By the side of the mean measures I have placed six individual measure
ments, viz.: a Negro and European of the same stature, and a European
female and a Negress of the same height; and also a new-born European
infant and a European child five years old. I wished to add a European child
from thirteen to fifteen years old. It is at that age, according to M. Carus,
that our children most approach the Negro by the relative dimensions of their
extremities.
“ The skeletons of the European females, which served for measurement,
are in the gallery of the museum, having been placed at my disposal by the
kindness of M. Quatrefages. Nearly all of them are those of females above
the middle height.”
f Facial cranium.—“ Before considering the anatomical details of the facial
cranium, it is indispensable to note the disproportion existing between the
size of the face and the cerebral cranium. This character, already indicated
by Cuvier, depends chiefly on the excessive development of the jaws and the
size of the cavities of the organs of sense. The orbits are large, funnel-shaped,
�ON THE NEGRCTS PLACE IN NATURE.
9
hard and unusually thick, enabling the Negroes to fight with
or carry heavy weights on their heads. The coronal region
with obtuse angles; their inferior margin is thick, round, more advancing
than the superior margin ■, the inferior is flattened; the depression lodging
the lachrymal gland is very deep. The lachrymal canal is large, and almost
exclusively formed by the nasal apophysis of the maxillary. The bones of the
nose are short, narrow but quadrangular, very rarely triangular, and ex
ceptionally soldered together, always joined at obtuse angles; they are some
times on the same plane. The nasal aperture is large, of an irregular
triangular form, wide, without a spine, or only the rudiment of one. The
root of the depressed nose is only exceptionally in a right line with the fore
head ■, the width of the root of the nose increases the distance between the
eyes a little more in the Aryan, but less than in the Turanian race. Some
times the nose of the Negro resembles, by its round aperture, that of the
Hottentot. The cornets, especially the middle, are swelled out ■> the vertical
lamina of the ethmoid is spread out, and the vomer stands out.
“ The malar bones are neither large nor high, but are either embossed in the
centre of their external surface, or distorted outwards by their inferior
border. The superior jaw presents frequently in its malar apophysis a
vertical pit,- then the cheekbones form an angle, and their prominence
appears great. When, on the contrary, the apophysis is flattened, and the
inferior border of the malar is much advanced, this character, joined with the
narrowness of the forehead, gives to the face a form approaching the pyra
midal shape. The prominence of the external orbital apophyses of the
coronal, the projection of the malar bones, and the antero-posterior direction
of their frontal apophyses produce a malar angle less open than in the Aryan
race whilst, on the contrary, the lateral compression of the anterior lobe
of the brain is marked by rather a right angle formed by the external wall,
of the orbit with the temple. The ascending apophyses of the maxillary
have their internal border more or less curved according to the shape of
the nose.
“ Prognathism, that is to say, the inclination of the alveolar border of the
superior jaw downwards and forwards from behind constitutes one of the most
constant characters in the skeleton of the Negro. Three degrees are dis
tinguished :—
“ (1.) The alveolar arch, elliptic instead of parabolic, generally convex
throughout, rarely concave at its external part, is alone inclined, and the
teeth are vertical.
“ (2.) The direction of the teeth is that of the jaw. In these two cases the
superior incisors pass a little beyond the superior dental arch.
“ (3.) The highest degree, which may be called double prognathism, presents
itself when the inferior incisors are, like the superior, projected obliquely;
then the junction of the two rows of incisors form the angle of a chisel. This
latter form is not the most frequent. But in double prognathism, cases have
been observed where, by a slight shortening of the horizontal rami of the
inferior maxillary, the superior incisors presented upon their posterior sur
face triangular facettes produced by the points of the inferior incisors.
“The molar teeth of the superior jaw descend sometimes lower than the
incisors, or are at least at a level with them, but rarely do the molars in the
Negro participate in prognathism, as is the case with some Australians,
or Oceanic Negroes. Never is, to my knowledge, the prognathism of the
Negro confined to a simple inclination of the alveoli. I have only remarked
this disposition in some female crania of the Aryan race of India.
“ The palatine arch, and especially the alveolar apophyses are not merely
much elongated, but more enlarged in the Negro than among the Aryans.
This arch is, on the average, about sixty-five millimeters in length in the
Negro, and only fifty-eight in the Aryan.
“ The inferior jaw, always more or less massive, is distinguished by a chin,
retracted, generally large and rounded, rarely pointed, and by the thickness
�10
ON THE NEGROES PLACE IN NATURE.
is arched, but not so much developed as in the European
woman. The posterior portion of the skull is increased,
in proportion to that of the anterior part being diminished.
But M. Grratiolet has shown that the unequal development of
the anterior lobes is not the sole cause of the psychological
inequalities of human races. The same scientific observer has
also stated that in the superior, or frontal races, the cranial
sutures close much later than in the inferior or occipital races.
The frontal races he considers superior not simply from the
form of the skull, but because they have an absolutely more
voluminous brain. The frontal cavity being much larger than
the occipital, a great loss of space is caused by the depression of
the anterior region, which is not compensated for by the in
crease of the occipital region. M. Gratiolet has also observed
that in the frontal races the sutures of the cranium do not
close so early as in the occipital or inferior race. From these
researches it appears that in the Negro the growth of the brain
is sooner arrested than in the European. This premature union
of the bones of the skull may give a clue to much of the mental
inferiority which is seen in the Negro race. There can be no
and length of its external rami. Its ascending rami are large, short, and
then’ junction with the horizontal are rarely at right angles. The coronoid
apophyses are always large, with an elliptic surface, flattened or oblique on
its external half. The glenoid cavities are large and mostly of little depth.
The teeth of the Negro are long, large, strikingly white, and not easily used
up. The inferior molars sometimes present five tubercles, an anomaly which
is sporadically found in all races of mankind. The jaw of the Negro never
presented to me any trace of an intermaxillary bone (I owe to M. E. Rous
seau’s kindness the firm conviction of the non-existence of the intermaxillary
bone in man in the normal state. His treatise places this important fact,
now for ever acquired by anatomical science, beyond any doubt), though
the incisive suture may be perfectly distinguished in the adult Negro at a
period when the cranial sutures are mostly obliterated.
“ The consistence of the cranial bones of the Negro is always considerable;
but their thickness varies much, chiefly according to the volume of the
cranium. Placed by the side of the Oceanian Negro, for instance, the cranium
of the African would in this, as well as other respects, produce the impression
of belonging to a civilised man, opposed to that of a savage, if this term be
applicable to a man who, more or less, lives in a state of nature.
“ Before quitting the examination of the cranium, I cannot pass over the
facial angle of the Negro. It naturally varies, as in the other races, accord
ing to the greater or lesser inclination of the face, according to the develop
ment of the frontal sinuses; and, as regards the conformation of the face, it
sinks, though rarely to 70°. But, on the other hand, the frontal angle of the
Negro reaches to 80°. We, however, attach but a relative value to these two
angles, for though the median fine of the forehead is rather vertical in the
Negro, the cranium is faulty, as regards the forehead, by an evident lateral
contraction.” (Pruner-Bey).
�ON THE NEGRO’S PLACE IN NATURE.
11
doubt that at puberty a great change takes place in relation to
^psychical development; and in the Negro there appears to be
an arrested development of the mind exactly harmonising with
the physical formation. Young Negro children are nearly as
intelligent as European children; but the older they grow the
less intelligent they become. They exhibit, when young, an
animal liveliness for play and tricks far surpassing the European
child. The young ape’s skull resembles more the Negro’s head
than the aged ape: thus showing a striking analogy in their
craniological development.
It has been pointed out that there were four forms of the hu
man pelvis, and that they might be classified under the following
heads :—The oval (European), round (American), square (Mon
gol), and oblong (African). The latest researches of Dr. Pruner
Bey enable him to affirm that this law is perfectly applicable
to the Negro. The head of the Negro is the best type of the
long skull, with small development of the frontal region. The
form of the pelvis is narrow, conical, or cuneiform, and small
in all its diameters. Vrolik has asserted that the pelvis of the
male Negio bears a great resemblance to that of the lower
mammalia. With respect to the capacity of the cranium of
the Negro, great difference of opinion has prevailed.
*
Tiede*. Dr. Pruner-Bey gives the following interesting summary of the Osteological peculiarities of the Negro race:—
Of the Cranium.—“ Cerebral cranium.—The antero-posterior diameter of the
cerebral cranium approaches 19 centimeters; the transversal diametei’ is
about 13.6; the face measures, from the chin to the hair, 18 centimeters;
and the distance of the zygomatic arches is 13 centimeters. I class the
cranium of the Negro in the category of harmonic dolichocephali.
Cerebral Vertebrae.—“ The coronal bone is rather short and narrow than re
ceding backwards, frequently distinguished by slender superciliary arches,
rarely by frontal bumps, but usually by a protuberance on the median line,
which corresponds with the third primordial convolution of the brain. A
slight compression is clearly marked on the two sides of the protuberance.
The nasal apophysis is always more or less large, according to the conforma
tion of the nose. The orbital apophyses, large at the base, are more curved
downwards than outwards. The temporal portion of the coronal presents
frequently on the top a slight dilatation, at the bottom on the contrary it is
compressed. The contours vary, according to the general form of the cranium,
when this is very much elongated and compressed on the sides, the coronal is
more elliptic, and more parabolic when the contrary is the case. The frontal
sinuses exist; they are but moderately developed as all the aerial reservoirs.
The summit of the cranium presents along the sagittal suture an ogival or
flattened, rarely vaulted, conformation. The great extent of the second
cranial vetebra, and its predominance over the first and third, is clearly de
fined, specially at the posterior part where the parietals slope gently down
towards the occiput, whilst their descent towards the temples is always very
N
1 I
�12
ON THE NEGRO’S PLACE IN NATURE.
mann’s researches, although very limited, have until recently
been accepted as satisfactory. He stated it as his opinion that
“ The brain of the Negro is, upon the whole, quite as large as
that of the European and other human races; the weight of the
brain, its dimensions, and the capacity of the cavum cranii prove
abrupt. In cases where the cranium of the male negro approaches the female
type, the posterior descent of the parietals approaches a vertical line, and the
horizontal section represents a wedge, instead of an ellipsis, which predomi
nates in the typical form of the Negro cranium.
“ When the cranium is viewed in profile, the temples appear deeply hollowed
in front, flattened or elongated backwards. The anterior margins of the
temporals are frequently joined to the coronal, on account of the shortening
of the great alee of the sphenoid. The parietal knobs are lower and less
marked in the male than in the female, and the superior semicircular lines,
though well marked, reach rarely the arch of the cranium. The squamous
part of the temporal is relatively low and long its margins are irregular.
The zygomatic arches are convex, rarely flattened ■> the meatus auditorius
presents a large and usually round orifice. The greatest width of the cranium
is thus as frequently found at the posterior and superior angle of the squamous
temporal as at the level of the parietal protuberances. Taken from this
point, the cranium diminishes in breadth towards the occiput, especially when
the latter projects, which is seen in most cases. There is a rather striking
parallelism between the coronal and the superior part of the occipital squama;
the latter being relatively small, curved, narrow, like the frontal squama and
in the elliptic crania it is arched in the centre. In this case its margins
intercept an obtuse angle; in the contrary case they are parabolic. The
Wormian bones may be met with in the crania of Negroes, and even form a
complete series along the lambdoid suture; but these cases are rare.
“ The base of the cranium is always relatively narrow; that part of the
occipital squama where the muscles are attached, presents sometimes a hori
zontal, but more frequently a slightly inclined, long, and narrow plane. In
the first form the superior part of the squama rises more to a right angle
towards the lambdoid suture than in the second form. The surface of the
squama, marked by the imprint of the muscles, represents a truncated pyramid
the base of which touches the anterior border of the great occipital foramen.
This aperture, always of a more or less elongated shape, is slightly inclined
from before backwards, so that its posterior border at least is above the level
of the palatine arch. Its position in relation to the centre of gravity is in
accord with dolichocephaly. (The distance from the occipital hole to the
base of the nose and the alveolar margins of the incisors, is naturally more
considerable in the Negro than in the orthognathous races; but the distance
of this hole to the base of the forehead, presented only slight differences. In
the brachycephalous races, on the contrary, especially in those with flattened
occiput, the occipital foramen is farther back. It is, moreover, difficult to
find crania in which this aperture corresponds exactly to the centre of the
cranium, as asserted by some anatomists.) The condyles of the occiput are
elongated, narrow, much inclined. The petrous portion of the temporal volumi
nous. The basilar bone is long, narrow, slightlyinclined from before backwards.
The development of the mastoid apophyses corresponds with the greater or
lesser massiveness of the cranium; the styloid apophyses are frequently much
elongated; the pterygoid apophyses are large, distant, and more or less in
clined. The union of the palate with the maxillary is usually formed by an
indented or undulated, instead of by a plain suture. The palate is elongated,
elliptic rather than parabolic, superficial, or deep. It is only in exceptional
cases that its width exceeds its length. All the apertures at the base of the
cranium are very spacious. We are at the same time struck by the elliptic
contours of this base and its general flatness, which renders the elevation of
the borders of the occipital foramen more perceptible.”
�ON THE NEGRO’S PLACE IN NATURE.
13
this fact.”* All recent researches have, however, done much
to show that Tiedemann’s investigations are not only unsatisfac
tory, but that his conclusion is not warranted by the facts which
we now have at hand. Blumenbach’s, Knox’s and Lawrence’s
conclusions did not accord with Tiedemann’s. But the most
satisfactory researches on this point are those made by the late
Dr. Morton, of America, and his successor, Dr. J. A. Meigs, of
Philadelphia. Dr. Meigs, in following out the researches of his
predecessor, has found that in size of the brain, the Negro
comes after the European, Fin, Syro-Egyptian, Mongol, Malay,
Semitic, American Indian, and the Esquimaux; but that the
brain of the Negro-race takes precedence of the ancient civilised
races of America, the Egyptian of all periods, the Hindoo, the
Hottentot, the Australian, and the Negroes of Polynesia. Thus
we see that the Negro has at least six well-defined races above
him and six below him, taking the internal cavity of the skull
as a test. Pruner Bey says that his own experience with the
external measurements did not yield essentially different results.
But we now know that it is necessary to be most cautious in
accepting the capacity of the cranium simply as any absolute
test of the intellectual power of any race.
The recent researches of Huschke on this point are most sig
nificant and valuable. He gives the following mean measure
ments of the surface of the cranium, viz. :—
Male Negro.
53206 square millimetres.
Female.
49868
,,
„
Male European.
59305 square millimetres.
Women.
53375
„
„
Relative size of three cranial vertebra) expressed in hun
dredths (1).
1st Vertebra
2nd and 3rd together -
Negro.
■ 7-7
92-3
Negress.
8-1
91-9
Male
European.
9-7
90-3
Female
European.
9-68
90-32
100-0
75-7
24-3
100-0
76-4
23-6
100-0
72-7
27-3
100-00
74-1
25-9
100-0
2nd Vertebra alone
3rd Vertebra
100-0
100-0
100-0
“ It is surprising,” says Pruner Bey, who quotes these tables,
* Philosophical Transactions, 1836.
�14
ON THE NEGRO S PLACE IN NATURE.
“ to observe to what a degree the mean capacity of the Negro
*
cranium approaches in its ensemble that of the European female,
and particularly how much in both the middle vertebra pre
dominates above the two others; whilst on the contrary, in the
European male, the posterior vertebra, and particularly the
anterior, are more developed in relation to the middle vertebra
than they are in the Negro and in the European female. It
* Pruner Bey quotes the following Table respecting the cerebral cranium
of the Negro.
*
Mean Measures in Millimeters.
DESIGNATION OF MEASURES.
Mean of
12 Negresses.
Mean of
24 Negros.
1°. DIAMETER (by Compass).
186.4
124.8
100.0
113.4
125.0
112.7
134.2
117.7
Antero-posterior
Vertical
rlnferior frontal .
Superior frontal .
Transverse Bi-temporal
Diameters Bi-auricular
Bi-parietal
-Bi-mastoidian
2°. CURVES (by Metrical
176.4
511.7
305.2
504.0
105.0 0
136.5 V 355.9
114.4 )
492.5
295.5
489.8
108.3 0
128.3 V 364.5
109.9 )
95.8
108.7
119.2
108.0
130.0
111.6
tape).
Horizontal circumference
Transversal bi-auricular curve
Vertical antero-posterior circumference
Frontal part
Decomposed in:
Parietal part
1°. Middle part Occipital part
f Length from the occipital
foramen .
„o t r? •
Distance from the ante2 • Inferior
rior margin of the foraI men to the frontal emit nence
34.0.
V 138.3
104.3'
3°. OTHER MEASURES.
Distance in a straight ) to Nasal eminence .
line from the meatus I to occipital protubeauditorius .
. ) rance
Dimensions of the occipital r length .
foramen
.
.
.1 breadth
113.1
107.1
110.9
35.9
30.3
107.0
34.0
28.0
4°. MILLESIMAL RATIO.
o
( horizontal circumference . 1000
Circumferences | yertical
.
985
f length (antero-posterior diameter) 1000
Diameters •! breadth (parietal diameter)
720
(height (vertical diameter)
669
1000
984
1000
737
585
* See Memoires de la SociAtd d’Anthropologie, 1861.
�ON THE NEGRO’S PLACE IN NATURE.
15
should be remarked that the occipital vertebra of the Negress
is more spacious than that of the Negro.”
Tiedemann affirmed that the brain of the Negro did not
resemble that of the Oran-utan more than that of the Euro
pean, except in the more symmetrical distribution of the gyri
and sulci. Tiedemann also denied Sommering’s assertion that
the nerves of the Negro are larger, in proportion to the brain,
than in the European; but Pruner Bey has confirmed Sommering’s opinion.
There seems to be, generally, less difference between the
Negro and the Negress, than between the European male and
*
female: but on the other hand, the Negress, with the shortened
humerus, presents a disadvantage “which one might be tempted
to look at as a return to the animal form” (Pruner). Law
rence says,f “ the Negro structure approaches unequivocally
* The Negress.—“ Before reviewing the chief varieties which the Negro type
offers to travellers, it is necessary to cast a glance at the Negress.
“ She possesses a cranium shorter, rounder, and wider in the posterior part
of the middle vertebra; the parietal protuberances are more prominent, the
apertures of the orbits frequently nearly circular, characters which approach
her a little to the European female. As regards stature and the length, of
the hair, as well as in the proportions of the parts composing the inferior
limb, the Negress resembles her husband more than the European female re
sembles her husband. As regards the latter point, it is not rare to find also
in Europe, fem a,les of high stature and a muscular aspect. The features of
the face do not, in the two sexes of the Sudan, present the same differences
as in the Aryan race. The mammae are less rounded, but already more
conical in early age. Their relaxing is rapid and excessive. This peculiarity
is, however, though in a less degree, found in Oriental females in other places,
and of different, origin. The pelvis presents, as regards width, some advan
tage over that of the male; the iliac bones are inclined towards the horizon,
thinning towards the centre, without, however, being transparent; the
haunches are rounder, steatopygy (fatty lumps on the buttocks) is only ex
ceptionally met with. The neck of the matrix is large and elongated; the
aperture of the vagina has a forward direction, despite of the inclination of
the pelvis.” (Pruner Bey.)
t Mr. Lawrence thus summarises the chief physical characters of the Negro
“ The characters of the Ethiopian variety, as observed in the genuine Negro,
tribes, may be thus summed up :—1. Narrow and depressed forehead; the
entire cranium contracted anteriorly; the cavity less, both in its circumfer
ence and transverse measurements. 2. Occipital foramen and condyles placed
farther back. 3. Large space for the temporal muscles. 4. Great develop
ment of the face. 5. Prominence of the jaws altogether, and particularly of
their alveolar margins and teeth; consequent obliquity of the facial line.
6. Superior incisors slanting. 7. Chin receding. 8. Very large and strong
zygomatic arch projecting towards the front. 9. Large nasal cavity. 10. Small
and flattened ossa nasi, sometimes consolidated, and running into a point
above.”—Lectures on Physiology, Zoology, and the Natural History of Man,
1819, p. 363.
�16
ON THE NEGRO’S PTACE IN NATURE.
to that of the apewhile Bory St. Vincent, and Fischer f
*
do not greatly differ in their description of the anatomy of
the Negro from the facts I have adduced.
There is no doubt that the Negro brain J bears a great re
semblance to a European female or child’s brain, and thus
* Bory de St. Vincent (L’homme, Paris, 1827) says:—“Large; the skin black
and entirely glossy, with the rete mncosum of Malpighi thicker and also
black; hair black, woolly, felted together; the anterior part of the skull very
narrow; flattened on the vertex, and rounded behind; eyes large, subrotund,
prominent, always damp, cornea yellowish, iris tinted of a chestnut black, eye
brows very short; nose flat (nasal bones flattened); zygomatic arches pro
tuberant ; ears of moderate size and prominent; lips thick and brown; inside
of the ears bright red; jaws, especially the lower one, projecting; incisor
teeth procumbent; chin short, round, receding; beard rare; breasts pearshaped, loose during milking; thighs and shanks partially curved.”
•f Fischer (Synopsis Mammalium, 1829-30), says:—“ The brain is less, and
the origins of the nerves thicker than in the American races, an opposite con
dition prevailing in the Japetic races; skull-cap one-ninth less ample than in
the European, sutures more narrow; all the bones whiter; intermaxillary bone
inclining above the chin; pelvic bones broad; muscles, blood, and bile of deep
colour; fcetid sweat; filthy; voice sharp and shrieking; nervous-phlegmatic
temperament.”
+ Pruner-Bey makes the following observations respecting the brain:
“ Soemmering had already observed that the peripheral nerves are larger,
relative to the volume of the brain, in the Negro than in the white man.
This fact is demonstrated in all its details by the beautiful preparation from
the skilful hand of M. Jacquart, exhibited in the gallery of the Museum of
Natural History.
“The brain, narrow and elongated, presents on its surface always a brownish
tint on account of a considerable injection of venous blood. The superficial
veins are very large, and resemble by their stiffness the sinus of the dura
mater. The grey matter shows in the interior a clear brown colour; the white
substance is yellowish. I am inclined to attribute this colour rather to the
blood than to a special pigment. Melanotic patches may be met with in the
meninges as elsewhere. Soemmering has observed blackish spots on the
spinal marrow. The cortical layer of the grey substance of the cerebral
hemispheres is of less thickness than in the European. Regarded in front
the brain presents a rounded point; from the top the parts appear grosser
and less varied than in the European. The convolutions, especially the
anterior and the lateral, are flat and of little depth, excepting the primary
convolution, the curvature of which produces the frontal eminence. In fol
lowing the undulations from the front backwards, we remark less lateral
deviations in the convolutions, which render the Aryan brain a real labyrinth.
In the middle lobe the convolutions seem considerably raised, but they are
coarse. The posterior lobe has always appeared to me flattened on the top,
as the anterior at the base. Viewed in profile, it is chiefly the direction of
the fissure of Sylvius and its interior which has occupied the attention of
anatomists. (Huschke cites with reserve the observations of Van der Kolk,
who places in parallel some peculiarities of this region of the Negro brain with
the disposition existing in apes. This part of cerebral anatomy has as yet been
little cultivated, and before arriving at conclusions we should wait until the
modifications which the human brain undergoes in all the periods of its develop
ment are better known than they are at present; hence I confine myself
simply to draw attention to Van der Kolk’s remarks. In order to establish
race characters upon such data, we should not forget what Rousseau says of
the hrs,in of Cuvier: “ Multiplied convolutions were in the centre, sur-
�17
ON THE NEGROES PLACE IN NATURE.
approaches the ape far more than the European, while the
*
Negress approaches the ape still nearer.
With regard to the chemical constituents of the brain of the
Negro, little that is positive is yet known. It has been found,
however, that the grey substance of the brain of a Negro is of a
mon-nt,<■.fl by a mammilated exuberance, which formed an integral part of these
convolutions.” Are we on that account disposed to assume that this great
man belonged to another race ?) With regard to the former, I have never
been able to observe any appreciable difference between the brain of the Negro
and that of the Egyptian, which I have placed side by side in order better to
study the relation of the parts externally. The superior part of the brain
above the corpus callosum is relatively little elevated. The cerebellum has a
less angular form than in the European; the vermis and the pineal gland
are very large. Finally, the consistence of the cerebral mass is unquestion
ably greater in the Negro than in the white man.
“ The inspection of the Negro brain shows that the convolutions of the
centre are clearly marked as in the Aryan foetus of seven months (Reichert),
and that the secondary details are less distinct. By its rounded apex, its
less developed posterior lobe, it resembles the brain of our children; by the
prominence of the parietal lobe it resembles that of our females, only that
the latter is broader in the European female. The form of the cerebellum,
the volume of the vermis and the pineal gland also place the Negro by the
side of the Aryan child.
“ Having indicated the general characters relating to the external form of
the great nervous centre, I must say a word with respect to its weight and
the relative proportions between cerebrum and cerebellum. The number
of observations on this point is very restricted, nevertheless we obtain some
important points. First, the extremes present a scarcely credible difference,
were it not confirmed by the great diversity in the measurement of the hori
zontal circumference of the cranium. Mascagni gives 738 grammes as the
weight of one brain and 1587 grammes as the weight of another. The results
obtained by Scemmering and Cooper seem to approach the average weight:
1354,5 and 1458 grammes. The mean for the weight of the cerebellum com
pared to that of the cerebrum would be : : 13,83 : 85,93. Measurement shows
that the cerebellum of the Negro, in accord with the general form, excels by
3,13 in length that of the European, which is, however, broader. Weight and
measurement establish that the two sexes present less differences in both
respects in the Negro race than in the Aryan race.”—Pruner Bey.
* “ The situation of the foramen magnum of the occipital bone is still a
matter of dispute. Dr. Prichard thought it to be ‘the same in the Negro as
in the European/ and so it may be, if no allowance be made for the face.
The situation of the foramen magnum of the occipital bone is not the same
in the Negro as in the European. Dr. Prichard says it is exactly behind the
transverse lines, bisecting the antero-posterior diameter of the base of the
cranium. Supposing this measurement to be correct, which it is not, it has
nothing to do with the pose or position of the head upon the vertebral column,
which, all must know, depends on the position of the condyles of the occipital
bone. A line bisecting the antero-posterior diameter of the skull, and divid
ing into two equal parts, passes in the European head through the centre
of the condyles of the occipital bone; and the same measurement applies
nearly to the antero-posterior diameter of the entire head. Not so in the
coloured races. In speaking of the base of the cranium, I am not quite sure
to which Prichard and his followers allude; for very generally in anatomical
works the base of the skull, including the upper jaw, is confounded with the
true base of the skull.” Robert Knox. Anthropological Review, vol. i., p. 266.
C
4
�18
xj
r?
THE NEGRO 8 PLACE IN NATURE.
darker colour than, that of the European, that the whole brain
,has a smoky tint, and that the pia mater contains brown spots,
which are never found in the brain of a European. M. Broca
has recently had an opportunity of confirming the truth of this
*
statement.
With regard to the convolutions, there is unani
mous testimony that the convolutions of the brain of the Negro
are less numerous and more massive than in the European.
Waitz thinks that the only resemblance of the Negroes brain
to that of the ape is limited to this point.fi Some observers
have thought they have detected a great resemblance between
* The following observations by M. Paul Broca on the brain of the
Negro is extracted from Bulletins de la Soc. d’Anthropologie, 1860. Before
reading a manuscript addressed to the Society by Professor G-ubler, of the
Faculty of Medicine, M. Broca stated the circumstances which induced Pro
fessor Gubler to present it. A negro died in the Hospital de la Pitie. The
body was brought to the amphitheatre of Clamart, when M. Broca asked of
the prosector of the hospital to examine the brain of that body. Owing to
the great heat of the month of August, the body was already in an incipient
state of decomposition, and the brain was too soft to study the convolutions.
M. Broca had, therefore, to confine himself to examining the colour of the
substance. In order to render the examination more easy, M. Broca opened
at the same time the cranium of a white subject, which was brought in the
same day. The pia mater of the Negro presented in certain spots a brown
tint; nothing of the kind existed in the white subject. The white substance
of the Negro brain had a smoky tint, but it was especially in the grey sub
stance that the brown tint was marked. The two brains were placed in two
separate vases containing the same quantity of alcohol. After three days
they were sufficiently firm to be examined. The difference of coloration
was then as decided as on the first day. In order approximately to de
termine the relative weight of the two brains, they were, after the re
moval of the membranes, dried upon some linen during a few minutes, and
placed in the scale. The brain of the white subject weighed 1003 gram
mes, that of the black weighed only 925.5 grammes, being a difference
of 8.3 per 100. This individual fact would be insignificant if it did not
accord with the known data. Thus it is well known that the measure
ments of the capacity of the cranium made by Meigs, according to Mor
ton’s method, gave an average of 93} cubic inches for European and AngloAmerican crania, and only 82-} for Negro crania, being a difference of
11} cubic inches; that is to say, that the cranial capacity of the Negro being
represented by 100, that of the European is represented by 111. M. Broca
had preserved in alcohol the least altered portion of the Negro brain, and
presented it to the Anthropological Society; but fearing that the long contact
with the alcohol might modify its coloration (which, however, it did not),
he showed it when fresh to the Biological Society. Already, some ten years
ago, M. Bayer made to the same Society an analogous present; and it is
known that since Meckel in 1753 published a paper on this subject in the
Memoirs of the Prussian Academy of Science, many authors have stated that
the brain of the Negro is notably of a darker colour than that of the white
man.”
fi See Introduction to Anthropology, by Dr. Theodor Waitz. Edited from
the first volume of Anthropologie der Naturvolker, by J. Frederick Colling
wood, Esq., F.G-.S., F.B.S.L., F.A.S.L., Honorary Secretary of the Anthropo
logical Society of London, p. 93.
�19
ON THE NEGROES PLACE IN NATURE.
the development of the temporal lobe in the Negro and ape;
but much further observation is required on this important
subject.
The eyes are more separated than in the European, but not
so much so as in the Mongol. The aperture of the eye is
narrow, horizontal, and both eyes are wide apart. All the
teeth, especially the last molars, are generally large, long, hard,
and very white, and usually show little signs of being worn.
In some Negro-skulls there has been found an extra molar
in the upper jaw. There is also sometimes a space between
the incisors and canine teeth of the upper jaw. The inferior
molars sometimes present in the Negro race five tubercles, and j
this anomaly is sporadically found in other races. It has been ’
*
noticed in the European and the Esquimaux, but is affirmed by 1
my friend Mr. Carter Blake to be more frequent in the Negro
and Australian than in any other race. Sometimes Negroes
*
* “ An exa.-mi-nation of the teeth in a considerable number of African Negro
m-nnin. has enabled us to draw the following conclusions :—In the African
Negro the teeth are usually of large, but not excessive, size ; they are regular,
commonly sound, although caries is occasionally observed, and they seldom
present that extreme amount of wearing down of the cutting and grinding
surfaces which may be found so commonly in the Australian and Polynesian.
The incisors are large, broad, and thick, but not of greater absolute dimen
sions than in numerous individuals amongst the white varieties. The teeth
do not depart from the human type in their relative proportions for whereever the incisors and canines are of considerable size, the true molars are
likewise large, and maintain that superiority which is a distinguishing feature
of the teeth of Man. The lateral incisors are well formed, and in the perfect
entirety of them outer angles they adhere more invariably to the human type
than do the same teeth in some more civilised races. The canines are not
proportionally longer or more pointed than in the white man. The premolars
agree in configuration and relative size with the typical standard. The true
molars are usually of large size, generally larger than in the European ■, the
dentes sapientiee, although smaller than the other molars, are in the majority
of instances of greater relative and actual dimensions, and the fangs of the
last-named teeth are usually distinct in both jaws. But in the character of
their grinding surfaces and their general contour, the molars of the African
Negro present no departure from the typical configuration, and, as in other
races, there are many instances in which a general description will not entirely
apply............ We would observe that, according to our limited experience, the
general characteristics of the African Negro dentition are best exemplified
(albeit liable to exception) in the Negroes of the Western Coast. The teeth
in the crania we have seen from Eastern Central Africa, and from the Mozam
bique, appeared to us to present less markedly the minor differences above
noted. The prognathic development of the jaws also, and the consequent
obliquity of implantation of the incisor teeth, though common in a varying
degree to all African nations, not excluding the Egyptians, attains its greatest
development in crania from the Western Coast.”—F. C. Webb. Teeth in Man
and Anthropoid Apes, p. 41.
c 2
fl
�20
ON THE NEGRO’S PLACE IN NATURE.
have thirty-four instead of thirty-two teeth. The skin between
the fingers, according to Van der Hoeven, reaches higher up
than in the European. The skin is also much thicker, especi
ally on the skull, the palm of the hand, and the sole of the
foot. The rete mucosum, which is the chief seat of coloration,
presents nothing particular as regards structure.
*
The hair of
* M. Pruner thus speaks of the skin:—“ Having now indicated the more
prominent characters of the skeleton, I pass to the examination of the Negro
with his integuments.
“ The skin, supple and cool to the touch, presents a velvety aspect (besides
the shades of colour already mentioned). Upon the abdomen such pro
minences form zigzags and broken fine lines; on the forearm they are seen
in the form of small lozenges, and even in the extremities the skin is not
altogether smooth. This aspect is partly the consequence of the great deve
lopment of the glandular apparatus, indicating a great turgescence of the
tissues. Thus the skin of the penis does not merely present simple folds, but
mainmilated eminences. The dermis is thicker than in the other races,
specially on the cranium, the palm, and the sole. The epidermis of an ashgrey colour is very resisting. The rete mucosum, which is the chief seat of the
coloration, presents nothing particular as regards its structure. Its contents,
viz., the pigment, is deposited in a shapeless mass, or in granules, chiefly
around and in the interior of the nuclei of polyhedric cells, which are dis
posed in numerous irregular layers. The pigment presents shades of colour
according to the position of the cells. The deeper and more coloured cells
are of a blackish brown, whilst those approaching more the dermis of a more
or less dilute yellow resemble the serosity of the blood (Koelliker). The
coloured web may be considered as the complement of the epidermis, to
which it adheres more closely than to the dermis, so that it is detached in
blistering, though some patches usually remain on the dermis. The colour
of the cicatrices in Negroes differs according to the colour of the individual,
and the time elapsed since the cicatrisation. I have observed nothing
noteworthy in this respect. It is known that the lines in tattooing present
a deeper colour than the skin from the materials rubbed in.
“ The Negro loses a portion of the pigment on being transported to the
north. It is always upon the prominent parts, such as the nose, the ears, &c.,
that a slight diminution is observed in dark subjects. I have, however,
never observed this change in individuals with a velvety black skin which
has sometimes a blueish shade. But in chronic diseases the diminution of
the pigment is very perceptible; thus the Negro grows, in a certain manner,
pale like the European. It is a general rule that the deeper coloured a
Negro is, compared to other individuals of his tribe, the better is his health.
With regard to the relation between the degree of coloration and the
intellect, the accounts of travellers do not agree. Thus, Dr. Barth asserts
that in the centre of the Sudan, the most glossy jet black skin belongs to the
most intelligent tribes. The example of the Yaloffs seems to confirm this as
regards the West. Mr. Speke, on the contrary, states with regard to the
Eastern populations between Mozambique and Lake Nyassa, that the tribes
of a lighter colour, though Negroes in all other respects, by far excel in
activity, bravery, and intelligence their jet black brothers. Very probably
both versions are correct; for we see in India, as well as Arabia, the two
extremes of colour combined with the same intellectual capacities in peoples
evidently congeners.
“ The intensity of the colour does not depend on the geographical latitude
in the tropical zone of Africa. The extremes of the chromatic scale are
in juxtaposition in the principal spots, on the Senegal as well as on the
�ON THE NEGROES PLACE IN NATURE.
21
the Negro is essentially different from that of the European,
and consists of coarse, crisp, frizzly sort of wool, growing
Gaboon, north of the Niger and south of Lake Tsad, towards the Bay of
Biaffra as in Mozambique, where M. Froberville counted thirty-one different
shades of colour. Continued displacements have so much intermixed the
tribes, and amalgamated entire nations, that it would be vain to determine,
even by approximation, the primitive country of the true Negroes, and to
derive therefrom any theory regarding the influence of geographical latitude
on coloration. It is equally impossible to establish the degrees of inter
mixture which the representatives of the chromatic map have undergone.
But, taking the deep brown or black Negro as the starting-point, can we
attribute his colour to the soil, the air, the position of the sun, the great
fluctuations between the diurnal and nocturnal temperature, an aliment rich
in carbon such as the butter-tree, fermented liquors, &c., on one side, and
the physiological reaction of the organism on the other? Must we, as
regards the latter point, take in account the important part which the skin
a,nd the liver take in the respiratory functions according as we proceed from
north to south? Must we admit that, in this respect, extremes meet, so
that in turning to the high north, we find the coloration increase as we
approach the pole ? Science is as yet not in possession of the necessary facts
to solve this question; experimental physiology must encounter it. As regards
the etiology of the colour of the Negro, we must recur to the laws ofheredity.”
The same author makes the following remarks respecting the distribution of
the pigment on the mucous membranes, the subcutaneous tissue, and the
viscera:—“ The pigment is in the form of black patches, found not merely
upon the tongue, the velum, the conjunctivae, and the external angles of the
eye, but also upon the mucous membrane of the intestinal canal, etc.
“ The cellular tissue is very abundant, especially on the erectile organs. The
mammiE, penis, lips, ears, and nostrils. The colour of the conjunctivae, always
more or less injected, is more or less yellowish; the fat is always of a wax
colour. An analogous coloration is observed in all the cellular and fibrous
membranes and even in the periosteum. The development of the muscles,
excepting the masseters, the external muscles of the ear, the larynx, and
sometimes of the temporals, are not in proportion to the weight of the bones;
their colour is never of the bright red of the European, but rather of a
yellowish tint, sometimes approaching the brown. M. Eschricht has found
the muscles of the larynx very strong, the crico-thyroidei are especially large;
he has moreover found that a portion of the fibres of these last muscles ascend
to the internal surface of the thyroid cartilage. Should that be a trace of the
internal crico-thyroid muscles of the hylobate apes ? The visible mucous
membranes of the mouth, the nostrils, etc., are of a cherry colour, excepting
the lips which are bluish.
“ As upon the skin, so is the glandular system much developed in the internal
integument; the intestinal canal always presents a broken aspect, especially
in the stomach and the colon. The intestinal mucus is very thick, viscid,
and fatty in appearance. All the abdominal glands are of large size, especially
the liver and the supra renal capsules; a venous hypersemia seems the ordi
nary condition of these organs. The position of the bladder is higher than in
the European. I find the seminal vesicles very large, always gorged with a
turbid liquid of a slightly greyish colour, even in cases where the autopsy
took place shortly after death. The penis is always of unusually large size,
and I found in all bodies a small conical gland on each side at the base of the
fraenum.
“ The vascular apparatus is very strong; but the nervous system visibly
predominates over the arterial. The small arteries present everywhere numer
ous flexuosities.
“ The heart is powerfully organised and the right cavities are always very
spacious. I have never observed here the least anomaly. The blood of the
�22
ON THE NEGRO’S PLACE IN NATURE.
in tufts like the wool of sheep. It is rarely more than three
inches long, and generally not nearly so much.* The larynx
in the Negro is not much developed, and the voice resembles
sometimes the alto of an eunuch. In the male the voice is low
and hoarse, and in the female it is acute and shrieking; at
least, this is the opinion that has generally been given by
Hamilton Smith and others : but there appear to be exceptions,
for Dr. R. Clarkef says that ec a pleasing manner, soft and win
ning ways, with a low and musical laugh, may in strict truth
be declared to be the heritage of most of the Negro women.”
There is a peculiarity in the Negro’s voice by which he can
always be distinguished. This peculiarity is so great that we
Negro (apart from anaemia and the dropsy) is always very thick, viscid,
and pitchy; it rarely is projected in a jet in bleeding; it strongly adheres to
the vessel, and always presents a serosity of a more or less dark yellow colour.
The lungs relatively much less voluminous than the viscera of the abdomen,
are usually melanose and pushed in by the stomach, the spleen, and the liver ;
it might be said that the latter organ usurps their place.”
* “The hair of the adult Negro is very fine, hard and elastic; generally
black, exceptionally of a fiery red, resembling wool, in describing several
circles from 6 to 8 millimeters. Its length in the male is usually from 9-12
centimeters. In the Negress of East Africa it rarely descends below the
shoulders. These women wear the hair in small tresses, carefully greased.
In the male the hair frequently has the appearance of a regular wig. Its
insertion seems to follow another law in the Negro than in the white man.
In the lattei’ it presents irregular lines which converge and diverge in cross
ing, whilst in the former it is always circular. From this disposition fre
quently result separate tufts as in the Hottentot, and this peculiarity is very
common among the Negresses of which I have spoken.
“ The hair of the Negro is not cylindrical. Transversal sections show that
its circumference is always an ellipsis, the large diameter exceeds the small
diameter by l-3rd to 3-5th. What is, moreover, remarkable, is that the large
diameter, examined in different sections, does not remain parallel to itself; it
turns as it were around the axis of the hair, so that the summits of these
small ellipses, instead of being disposed in a straight line, describe around the
hair two spiral curves (Koelliker). It is to this disposition that the crisp
state of the hair of the Negro is due. With regard to the elementary micro
scopic structure, the hair of the Negro differs from that of other races only
by its medullary portion. The central medullary and aeriferous canal which
is clearly seen in hair with elliptical circumference, and of which some traces
are found in the cylindric ham of Turanians, is absent in the Negro, even in
those of his race which have red hair.
“ In the Aryan race, the hair of the same individual presents different shades
in different parts of the body, but it is certain that the hair of the Negro is
finer, elliptical and crisp, and that I have never found in it any trace of a
medullary canal. The Negro race has, moreover, no down upon the body;
and but few hairs on the pubes and armpits. The beard comes late in the
male; it is silky or slightly crisp on the upper lip, more or less frizzled on the
cheeks and the chin. The eyelashes curved; the eyebrows but little furnished
are generally but little arched. The contrary is, according to Dr. Barth, ob
served in the Mousgous.”—Pruneb-Bey.
f Transactions of the Ethnological Society, vol. ii of New Series.
�ON THE NEGRO
h
PLACE IN NATURE.
23
can frequently discover traces of Negro blood when the eye is
unable to detect it. No amount of education or time is likely
ever to enable the Negro to speak the English language with
out this twang. Even his great faculty of imitation will not
enable him to do this.
Having thus briefly recapitulated the anatomical peculiarities
of the Negro, we now come to the physiological difference be
*
tween the Negro and European.
* Mr. Plainer Bey gives the following :—Physiological Fragments.—“ The
penetrating odour which the Negro exhales, has something ammoniacal and
rancid; it is like the odour of the he-goat. It does not depend on the aqueous
perspiration, for it is not increased by it. It is probably a volatile oil dis
engaged by the sebaceous follicles. This odour much diminishes by clean
liness, without, however, entirely disappearing. We are not aware whether
this race-character changes by a uniform diet, as is the case with the fishers
and opossum hunters in Australia.
“ The observations on the temperature of the internal cavities of the Negro
race are not numerous enough to draw conclusions. It is, nevertheless, use
ful to note the results of the researches of M. d’ Abbadie. In Upper Ethiopia
this celebrated traveller found at all seasons, in the buccal cavity of the Negro,
a higher temperature than in individuals belonging to other races. The young
Negresses always preserve in Egypt this excess of temperature; not so the
young Negroes: these have the mouth warmer than young men of other races
in hot weather, but colder, on the contrary, in cold weather.
“The pulse of the Negro in Egypt nearly corresponds to that of the other
inhabitants, being, from 60-70 pulsations per minute. The contrary is obseiwed
in male children, from 10-13 years, and in young females from 14-20: for the
former 74-96; for the latter 84-104 pulsations per minute.
“ The senses of the Negro are not developed as in other races which are
nearer to the state of nature, or live in a different climate. Vision does not
in the Negro surpass that of the European; the flattening of the cornea
renders the Negro rather presbyopic than myopic. From his inclination and
talent for music, hearing seems his most developed sense; at any rate he ex
cels, in this respect, the Egyptian. To judge from the extent of the nasal
cavities, smell ought to be very acute, such, however, does not appear to be
the case. This applies also to the sense of taste; the Negro is omnivorous
Touch, this general corrector of the white races, is little developed in the
Negro, which accords with the flattening of the tactile cushions. But the most
striking phenomenon with regard to general sensibility, is the apparent apathy
of the Negro as to pain. In the most serious affections of internal organs,
the Negro, arrived at a certain point, cowers on his bed (at least in the
hospitals) without responding by any sign to the care of his physician. How
ever, in a state of civilised slavery, where he has acquired some knowledge,
he becomes more communicative, without, however, betraying any manifesta
tion of pain. Bad treatment causes the Negro, the Negress, and the child to
abundantly shed tears, but physical pain never provokes them. The Negro
frequently resists surgical operations, but when he once submits, he fixes his
eyes upon the instrument and the hand of the operator without any mark of
restlessness or impatience. The lips, however, change colour and the sweat
runs from him during the operation. A single example will support our view.
A negress underwent the amputation of the right half of the lower jaw with
the most astonishing apathy; but no sooner was the diseased part removed,
than she commenced singing with a loud and sonorous voice, in spite of our
remonstrances, and the wound could only be dressed after she had finished
her hymn of grace.
�24
ON THE NEGRO S PLACE IN NATURE.
The assumption of the unity of the species of man has been
based chiefly on the asserted fact that the offspring of all the
“ The phases of development present in the Negro race some peculiarities
which appear to me worth notice. We know next to nothing of the embryo
nic state. The Negro infant is born without prognathism, with an ensemble
of traits which is more or less characteristic as regards the soft parts, but
which is scarcely marked in the cranium. In this respect the Negro, the
Hottentot, the Australian, the Neo-Caledonian, do not indicate in the osseous
system the difference which will arise later. The new born Negro child does
not present the colour of the parents; it is of a red colour mixed with bistre
and less vivid than that of new-born European children. This premature
colour is, however, more or less deep, according to the regions of the body.
From reddish it passes to slate-grey, until sooner or later, according to the
climate and soil, it corresponds to the colour of the parents. In the Sudan
the m eta.m orph osi s. i.e., the development of the pigment, is generally completed
at the end of the first year; in Egypt only at the end of three years. The
'hair of the Negro baby at first is rather chestnut than black; it is straight and
slightly curved at the point. I was unable exactly to determine the extent
of the fontanelles, but to judge from the cranium, the difference in this
respect from the Aryan child is not appreciable.
“ The first dentition commences nearly at the same epoch as with us. I have
however, observed in Egypt cases of precocious as well as retarded dentition.
Suckling continues during two years at least. After the first dentition, we
already observe upon the cranium certain distinctive characters, viz.:—The
median line of the forehead raised, the chin retracted, the superior jaw slightly
inclined, the nose widened, the occiput prominent. Still the young Negro
presents, until the time of puberty, a pleasing exterior. Puberty supervenes
in girls between the ages of 10-12, and in boys between 13-15 years. It is
then that the great revolution in the forms and proportions of the skeleton
rapidly proceeds. This process and its results follow an inverse course as
regards the cerebral and facial cranium. The jaws are enlarged with
out any compensation for the brain: it is not meant that there is an arrest
of development—no, the difference of race manifests itself merely by a dif
ferent order of increase in the growth of the respective parts. Whilst in the
Aryan man the moderate increase of the jaws and the bones of the face is
abundantly compensated and even surpassed by a development or rather en
largement of the brain, specially of the anterior lobe: the contrary takes
place in the Negro. Great compression, chiefly lateral, produced from with
out inwardly by the muscles destined for animal life; small reaction in the
interior on part of the brain, and we have the mould of his cranium and his
brain formed as we have described it. Everything is in harmony with the
organism. No doubt this mode of viewing the conformation of the Negro
cranium is open for discussion.
“ The course taken by the obliteration of the cranial sutures, furnishes a
significative commentary to these phenomena. The medio-frontal suture as
well as the lateral part of the coronal suture is in the Negro invariably closed
already in early youth. In the adult Negro the union proceeds then to the
middle part of the coronal suture and the sagittal suture—or as I have ob
served on crania in East Africa—on all sutures at once. The lambdoid suture
is that which remains open longest, especially on the summit. At the base of
the cranium, on the other hand, the basilo-sphenoid suture is frequently found
open. As regards the incisive suture, it not only persists in the infant Negro,
but is very distinct in many Negro crania of an advanced age. The obhteration
of the sutures seems in the Negro race to be more rapidly effected in the
female than in the male.
“ Prognathism has been, and may be considered, at least partly, as the result
of the action of the inferior jaw on the concentric arch of the superior jaw.
At any rate, the mode of articulation of this bone with the temporal, seems
�ON THE NEGRO
b
PLACE IN NATURE.
25
mixtures of the so called races of man are prolific. Now this
is assuming what yet has to be established. At present it is
only proved that the descendants of some of the different races
of man are temporarily prolific; but there is the best evidence
to believe that the offspring of the Negro and European are
not indefinitely prolific. This question is one which must be
dealt with separately and proved by facts. At present we find
that all primd facie evidence is against the assumption that
permanent mixed races can be produced, especially if the
races are not very closely allied. This subject, however, merits
a special discussion, and belongs to that large and important
question—human hybridity. We, therefore, cannot agree with
much to contribute to it; for I have met with this conformation preferentially
in the races in which the glenoid is large but of little depth, and the condyles
of the maxillary more or less flattened, or at least elliptic; it coincides with
a more or less pronounced harmony of the row of teeth. These conditions
facilitate the movement of the jaw from behind forwards, whilst in the cranium
with deep and contracted glenoid cavities, and with condyles more or less
rounded or pointed, the movement of the jaw is preferentially vertical. I am,
however, well aware of the insufficiency of this etiology, and I ask myself
whether prognathism is not simply the expression of a movement towards
animality. It has been thought that prolonged lactation may in the Negro
favour prognathism but I must observe that this custom prevails among many
Oriental nations which are orthognathous. Moreover, it is known that the
conformation is not exclusively peculiar to the African Negro. The majority
of human races, whether dolicho- or brachycephalous, participate in it, as well
as some civilised peoples : for instance the Peruvians, the Chinese, and JavanoMalays, at least the plurality of individuals comprising those nations. We
And also exceptional cases more frequently in the ancient and modern Egypt
ians, less among the Jews, and less still in Western Europe. In all these
cases, this conformation, however, does not exceed the first degree of the
three distinct degrees we have established.
“ It must also be observed that the relative depression of the middle part of
the face joined to the prominence of the jaws, is the essential condition of
prognathism, and of the results derived from the measurement of the facial
angle. We thus comprehend that the two straight lines drawn from the
meatus auditorius to the forehead, and the alveolar border of the palatine
suture, rarely present in favour of the latter a difference of two millimeters.
This shows us that the depression of the nose in the Negro is as essential to
produce prognathism, as the increase of the jaws from behind forwards. Par
turition, and lactation ordinarily give but little trouble to the Negress. Her
fecundity seems to be great, for she produces up -to ten children; but the
manners and even the institutions much reduce the mimher of offspring.
Decline commences in the Negress between thirty-five and forty. Whilst the
ugliness which accompanies age in the female is excessive, we find that in
the male the hair blanches early, and at an advanced age his external aspect
loses its harmony. Even in the races of the Sudan, with clear complexions
and expressive features, as for instance in the Foulahs, which some hesitate
to place among the Negroes, Dr. Barth remarks on the ugliness they exhibit
in old age. He observes that their face has something of the ape at that
period, and he makes similar observations as regards the old ladies of the
Maghis tribe, whose harmonious features when young he so much admired.”
�26
ON THE NEGRO’S PLACE IN NATURE.
the asserted statement, especially when we find that the two
scientific men who have in recent times paid the most atten
tion to this subject—I allude to Messrs. Broca and Nott—
have come to the conclusion that the offspring of the Negro
and European are not indefinitely prolific. With the permission of the Society, I will enter into that question at some
future day.
M. Flourens asserted that the Negro children were born
white; but recent observation has shown that this is not the
case. Benet, ex-physician of Runjeet Singh, and Dumoutier,
affirm that the children are born chestnut colour. M. Primer
Bey confirms this fact from personal observation.
In the Negro race there is a great uniformity of tempera
ment. In every people of Europe all temperaments exist; but
in the Negro race, we can only discover analogies for the
choleric and phlegmatic temperaments. The senses of the
Negro are said to be very acute, especially smell and taste;
but Pruner Bey says that there has been much exaggeration
as to the perfection of the senses of the Negro, and that his
eye-sight in particular is very much inferior to the European.
The most detestable odours delight him, and he eats every
*
thing.
While the anatomical and physiological questions must be
decided by actual facts, there still remains to investigate the
psychological peculiarity of the Negro. It is here, perhaps,
that the greatest amount of misconception exists in the minds
of the public generally, and not unfrequently in the minds of
some men of science. Wedded to the theory of a single pair
for the origin of man, they attempt to show that there is in
mankind no variety, nothing but uniformity.
To show I do not exaggerate on this point, I will quote the
words of an esteemed friend, which he read last year at Cam
bridge. He says :—“ Eor as God made of one blood all the
nations of the earth, and endowed them all with the same
animal, intellectual, moral, and religious nature : so has he
* Mr. Louis Fraser informs me that this is not always the case, and that
sometimes a Negro will leave a vessel on account of a disagreeable odour,
saying, “ Cap’n, your ship stink too much, I can’t stop.”
�ON THE NEGROES PLACE IN NATURE.
27
bound them all together—in accordance with the high behest
that they should increase and multiply and replenish the earth
—in one common bond of universal brotherhood?' ’
Mr. Dunn, however, it must be acknowledged, does not carry
out the principles he here enunciates, for he fully admits the
fact that, practically, Negro children cannot be educated with
the whites. He also admits that some of the lower races are
not able to receive complex ideas, or have little power of think
ing, and none of generalisation, although they have excellent
memories.
The assertion that the negro only requires an opportunity
for becoming civilised, is disproved by history. The African
race has had the benefit of the Egyptian, Carthaginian, and
Roman civilisations, but nowhere did it become civilised. Not
only has the Negro race never civilised itself, but it has never
accepted any other civilisation. No people have had so much
communication with Christian Europeans as the people of
Africa, where Christian bishops existed for centuries. Except
*
some knowledge of metallurgy they possess no art; and
their rude laws seem to have been borrowed and changed to
suit their peculiar instincts. It is alleged that the Negro
only requires early education to be equal to the European;
but all experiments of this kind have proved that such is not
the fact. With the negro, as with some other races of man, it
has been found that the children are precocious : but that no
advance in education can be made after they arrive at the age
of maturity, they still continue, mentally, children. It is appa
rently of little consequence what amount of education they re
ceive, the same result nearly always follows, the reflective
faculties hardly appear to be at all developed. The dark
races generally do not accept the civilisation which surrounds
them, as is shown in the South Sea, where they remain the
uncivilised race by the side of the Malays. The opinion of
Dr. Channing of America, is often quoted respecting the
Negro. He says:—<c I would expect from the Negro race
when civilised, less energy, less courage, less intellectual origi
* It is said that when the Negro has been with other races, he has always
been a slave. This is quite true: but why has he been a slave ?
�28
ON THE NEGROES PLACE IN NATURE.
nality, than in ours; but more amiableness, tranquillity, gentle
ness, and content.” Now, if it were possible to civilise them,
there is no doubt they would show less energy, courage, and
intellectual originality (of which they would be utterly deficient)
and, as to their amiableness, tranquillity, gentleness, and con
tent, it would be more like the tranquillity and content shown
by some of our domestic animals than anything else to which
we can compare it. It has been said that the present slave
holders of America“ no more think of insurrection amongst their
full-blooded slaves than they do of rebellion amongst their cows
and horses ! ”* It has also been affirmed (and I believe with
truth) that not a single soldier has been required to keep
order in the so called “ Slave States” of America.
The many assumed cases of civilised Negroes generally are
not those of pure African blood. In the Southern States of North
America, in the West Indies and other places, it has been fre
quently observed that the Negroes in place of trust have Euro
pean features,and some writers have supposed that these changes
have been due to a gradual improvement in the Negro race
which is taking place under favourable circumstances. It is
assumed that great improvement has taken place in the intellect
of the Negro by education, but we believe such not to be the
fact. It is simply the European blood in their veins which
renders them fit for places of power, and they often use this
power far more cruelly than either of the pure blooded races.
At the same time, there are doubtless many exceptions to this
rule; depending perhaps on the amount of mixture of blood
and inherited peculiarities. It has been affirmed that occa
sionally there are seen Negroes of pure blood who possess
* “ The Southern planter, with a consciousness of superiority that would be
ashamed to resort to fiction or imposition of any kind, takes off his coat and
works in the same field and at the same labour as his ‘ slave.’ The thought
of the latter contesting his superiority never once enters his mind. As
said by a sound statesman and gallant soldier of the South, ‘ we no more
think of a Negro insurrection, than we do of a rebellion of our cows and
horses.’ The planter rules as naturally as the Negro obeys instinctively;
the relation between them is natural, harmonious, and necessary, and their
interests being indivisible, there can be no cause or motive, either for the
abuse of power on the part of the master, or of rebellion on the part of the
servant.”—Negroes and Negro “ Slavery.” By J. H. Van Evrie, M D Nev
York, 1861, p. 29.
�ON THE NEGRO’S PLACE IN NATURE.
29
European features : but I believe such not to be the fact,
and Pruner Bey also says that “ with regard to the re
gular Caucasian features, with which some tiavellers have
endowed certain Negro peoples, I must state that among many
thousand Negroes who have come under my own observation,
there was not one who could lay claim to it.”
Instances have often been quoted of reputed European
skulls with Negro characters. Such an instance there is in
the College of Surgeons, another in Morton’s museum, and
one in Gall’s collection; but if we admit these to have be
longed to the pure race, we shall only be admitting that in
*
one character the European skull sometimes resembles that
of the Negro; but there will be plenty of other characters to
show that they did not belong to the same race or species,
and it ought simply to caution us not to base our ideas of race
or species upon one character. We know that species of the
mammalia frequently cannot be distinguished by the form of
the skeleton, and we must therefore not be surprised to find
that we are unable to prove a distinction of species in mankind
if we take the cranium or even skeleton as a sole test.
We now know it to be a patent fact that there are races
existing which have no history, and that the Negro is one of
these races. From the most remote antiquity the Negro race
seems to have been what it now is.fi We maybe pretty sure
* A large amount of mixture has continually been going on between the
natives and the traders, especially on the rivers. The traders are not the
finest specimens of their race, and much of the immorality of the settlements
may be owing to this mixed blood. The following custom has existed for
ages, and render most uncertain the parentage of some Africans who even
come direct from the interior:—“ The European stranger, however, travelling
in their country, is expected to patronize their wives and daughters, and
these unconscious followers of Lycurgus and Cato feel hurt, as if dishonoured,
by his refusing to gratify them. The custom is very prevalent along this
coast. At Gaboon, perhaps it reaches the acme; there a man will in one
breath offer the choice between his wife, sister, and daughter. The women
of course do as they are bid by the men, and they consider all familiarity
with a white man a high honour.”—Wanderings in West Africa, vol. 2, p. 24.
f As a proof that the African race has not changed during the last 2,000
years, the following description of an “ Aunt Chloe” of the days of Virgil
may be interesting:—
Afra genus, tota patriam testante figura,
Torta comam, labroque tumens, et fusca colorem;
Pectore lata, jacens mammis, compressior alvo,
Cruribus exilis, spatiosa prodiga planta;
Continuis rimis calcanea scissa rigebant.
�30
ON THE NEGRO’S PLACE IN NATURE.
that the Negro race has been without a progressive history;
and that Negroes have been for thousands of years the uncivilised
race they are at this moment. Egyptian monuments depict
them as such, and holding exactly the same position relative
to the European. Morton truly observes : “Negroes were
*
numerous in Egypt, but their social position in ancient times
was the same that it now is, that of servants and slaves.”
Some writers have assumed that the Negro has degenerated
from some higher form of civilisation, but we see no evidence
to support such an assertion. We, however, fully admit that
there are found traces of a higher civilisation, especially along
the coasts visited, during all ages, by Europeans. The working
of metals and imitation of European manufactures also exist in
many parts of Africa. Indeed, there seems to be a great same
ness in this respect throughout all Africa. Consul Hutchinson
has given an interesting account of the finding of some imple
ments used by the natives of Central Africa exactly resembling
those used by the Anglo-Saxons.
Consul Hutchinson thus describes them :f—“ You will be
surprised, no doubt, to hear that I brought down with me from
the tribes of Filatahs, in Central Africa, iron heads of spears
with wooden shafts and iron spiked ferules, heads of javelins
and arrows, double-edged swords, knives, beads for orna
ments, potteryware for culinary purposes, exactly similar in
pattern to those that are described by Mr. Wright, in a paper
on f Fausset Antiquities,’ which he read before the British As
sociation at Liverpool, in 1856, and which antiquities I need
scarcely tell you were excavated at Canterbury, as well as
proved to have been used in this country before the introduc
tion of Christianity to our shores. Even the cowrie (the shell
As it is the fashion to quote Cowper on the Negro in the anthopological dis
cussion, I append his translation of the above, which although feeble, yet
conveys the spirit of the original.
“ From Afric she, the swain’s sole serving maid,
Whose face and form alike her birth betrayed;
With woolly locks, lips tumid, sable skin,
Wide bosom, udders flaccid, belly thin,
Legs slender, broad and most misshapen feet,
Chapped into chinks, and parched with solar heat.”
* Crania jEgyptiaca. Philadelphia, 1844 (eighth conclusion).
f Transactions of the Ethn. Soc., vol. i, new series, p. 328.
�ON THE NEGRO’S PLACE IN NATURE.
31
of the Cyprcea moneta), which is described in. Mr. Wright’s paper
as having been found among other relics of our Anglo-Saxon
forefathers, is in this very day the currency among the Filatahs.
It may perhaps increase the interest of my statement, which
can be demonstrated by the articles I brought home (being de
posited at the Royal Institution museum at Liverpool), when I
add that they were obtained from tribes who had no record of
ever having been visited by any white man previous to the time
of our voyage at the end of 1854.”
There is good reason to believe that, like all inferior races,
there has been little or no migration from Africa since the
earliest historical records. The European, for ever restless, has
migrated to all parts of the world, and traces of him are to be
found in every quarter of the globe. Everywhere we see the
European as the conqueror and the dominant race, and no
amount of education will ever alter the decrees of Nature’s
laws.
We hear much of late in this country of the equality of the
Negro and European, because we have little real knowledge of
the Negro; but in America the Negro is better known. As
Dr. Van Evrie observes : “ In the United States, among a
*
people almost universally educated, and where the fact of
‘ equality ’ is almost universally understood and acted on, per
sonally as well as politically, the advocacy of woman’s ‘ equal
ity,’ in the sense that they (in England) argue it, or c equality ’
of the Negro to the white man in any sense whatever, is in
excusable on the ground of ignorance; and those thus warring
against the laws of nature and progress of society, deserve to
be treated as its enemies, or as absolute maniacs, and irre
sponsible for the evils they seek to inflict upon it.” It has
been assumed on very insufficient evidence that the Negroes in
America improve in intelligence in every generation, and that
they gradually approach the European type. M. Quatrefages
recently directed our attention to this point, as did Sir Charles
Lyell many years ago. It is affirmed that the head and body
also approach the European without any mixture of the races.
* Negroes and “Negro Slavery.”
New York, 1861, p. 10.
�82
ON THE NEGRO’S PLACE IN NATURE.
M. Quatrefages quotes the following from M. Elisee Rectus :
*
“We do not intend here to touch upon the question of slavery,
we would merely state a certain fact—the constant advance of
Negroes in the social scale. Even in physical respects they
tend gradually to approach their masters; the Negroes of the
United States have no longer the same type as the African
Negroes; their skin is rarely of velvet black, though nearly all
their progenitors have been imported from the Coast of Guinea;
their cheekbones are less prominent, their lips not so thick,
nor the nose so flattened, neither is the hair so crisp, the
physiognomy so brutish, the facial angle so acute as those
of their brethren in the old world. In the space of one hundred
and fifty years they have, as far as external appearance goes,
passed one-fourth of the gulph which separates them from the
white race.” We believe such not to be the fact, and that no
improvement takes place after the second generation.
On this point Dr. Nott f has very judiciously observed:
“ Sir C. Lyell, in common with tourists less eminent,, but on
this question not less misinformed, has somewhere stated that
the Negroes in America are undergoing a manifest improve
ment in their physical type. He has no doubt that they will,
in time, show a development in skull and intellect quite equal
to the whites. This unscientific assertion is disproved by the
cranial measurements of Dr. Morton. That Negroes imported
into, or born in, the United States become more intelligent
and better developed in their physique generally than their
native compatriots of Africa, every one will admit; but such
intelligence is easily explained by their ceaseless contact with
the whites, from whom they derive much instruction; and such
physical improvement may also be readily accounted for by the
increased comforts with which they are supplied. In Africa,
owing to their natural improvidence, the Negroes are more
frequently than not a half-starved, and therefore half-developed,
race; but when they are regularly and adequately fed, they
become healthier, better developed, and more humanised.
Wild horses, cattle, asses, and other brutes are greatly im
* Unite de VEspace Humaine. Paris, 1861.
f Types of Mankind. Philadelphia, 1857, p. 260.
�33
ON THE NEGRO’S PLACE IN NATURE.
proved in like manner by domestication; but neither climate
nor food can transmute an ass into a horse, or a buffalo into
an ox.”
The real facts seem to be, that the Negroes employed in
domestic labour have more intelligence than those who are
employed at field labour, who are nearly in the same mental
condition as when they left Africa. We must bear in mind,
however, that there are only some of the African tribes of
Negroes who are docile and intelligent enough for domestic
purposes : the Eboes are generally selected for this purpose.
We see therefore in this improvement of the Negro simply
the effect of education, but not of climate or other physical
agents. We fully admit that the domestic Negroes are im
proved in intelligence in America, resulting from the imitation
of the superior race by which they are surrounded; but much
of the improvement in intellect is owing to the mixture of
European and Negro blood. The Negro is not generally edu
cated because it is affirmed that he is no sooner taught to read
than he will take every chance of reading his master’s letters;
and if he be taught to write, he will soon learn to forge his
master’s signature. This applies with equal, and, perhaps,
greater force to those free, semi-civilised Negroes who are held
by some in such theoretical veneration.
I have intentionally avoided dwelling on the great diversity
of physical type found in Africa, as this is foreign to our
subject. There can be no doubt, however, that there is,
both in North and South Africa every shade of colour and
races with very different features. There are also in Central
Africa some races such as the Mandingos, Fulahs, and Wolofs,
who are quite distinct from the typical Negro. In these races,
some of the characters found in the typical Negro are found in
only a very modified degree. How many races inhabit Africa.,
and their relation to one another, is not the subject of present
inquiry. M. Pruner Bey has very judiciously made the follow
ing observations on this point:—
“We must admit that the inferior orbital margins are fre
quently narrow and retreating ; that the noses become longer
and more prominent; that the lips turned up in some tribes
D
�34
ON THE NEGROES PLACE IN NATURE.
are only full in others ; that prognathism diminishes without
however disappearing entirely; that the aperture of the eye
becomes wide ; that the hair short and woolly in most, grows
longer ; that the transverse diameter of the chest becomes en
larged ; that even the pelvis, though much more rarely, ac
quires more rounded outlines; that the limbs acquire more
harmonious proportions ; that the hips, thighs, and legs become
more fleshy and the foot more arched; but as regards the
crowning of the work, i.e., the skull, especially the cere
brum, all the variations in the Negro race remain confined
within limits which deserve our attention. In the Aryan
race the skull presents three fundamental types, the elongated
form (producing in some exceptional cases prognathism)
which approaches the limit of the Negro type; the short and
round form, approaching the Turanian race ; and finally, the
typically beautiful oval form, which seems to have resulted
from a combination of the two former. Nothing like it is to be
found in the Negro. The skull is and remains elongated, it is
elliptical, cuneiform, but never round; his facial bones may
approach the pyramidal form by the increasing distance be
tween the cheekbones, and may in this respect resemble the
Kaffirs and the Bechuanas, but this is all/'’ This generalisa
tion appears to me to be in accordance with all the known facts
respecting the craniological development of the chief African
tribes, which thus form one great ethnic family, although com
posed of many distinct races.
I need not enlarge on the well-known and admitted facts
respecting the intense immorality which exists amongst the
Mulattoes and others of mixed blood.
*
There are, at the same
* The following extract is a striking confirmation of this remark :—“ But
the worst class of all is the mulatto—under which I include quadroon and
octaroon. He is everywhere, like wealth, irritamenta malorum. The ‘ barsinister,’ and the uneasy idea that he is despised, naturally fill him with
ineffable bile and bitterness. Inferior in point of morale to Europeans, as
far as regards physique to Africans, he seeks strength in making the families
of his progenitors fall out. Many such men visiting England are received by
virtue of their woolly hair and yellow skin into a class that would reject a
fellow-countryman of similar, nay of far higher, position; and there are
amongst them infamous characters, who are not found out till too late.
London is fast learning to distinguish between the Asiatic Mir and the
Munshi. The real African, however—so enduring are the sentimentalisms
of Wilberforce and Buxton—is still to be understood.”—Wanderings in West
�35
ON THE NEGROES PLACE IN NATURE.
time, perhaps, some exceptions to this general rule, which, how
ever, hasheen observed in every country where thesepeople exist.
Of all the questions connected with the Negro, the most
difficult to settle is that of his intelligence. Amidst conflicting
testimony, it is difficult to discover the truth. AVe may ad
Africa. 1863. Vol. i. p. 271. This is by no means a modern idea, for I
find the following extract from a work entitled “ A new voyage to Guinea,”
by William Smith, Esq., appointed by the Royal African Company to
survey their settlements, make discoveries, &c., in a second edition pub
lished in 1745, p. 213. Speaking of the Mulattoes of the Gold Coast at that
time, this author observes: “ Upon this coast are a Sort of People called
Mullatoes, a race begotten by the Europeans upon Negroe Women. This
Bastard Blood is a Parcel of the most profligate Villains, neither true
to the Negroes, nor to one another; yet they assume the Name of Chris
tians, but are indeed as great Idolaters as any on the Coast. Most of
the Women are public Whores to the Europeans, and private ones to the
Negroes. In short, whatever is bad among the Europeans or Negroes are
united in them; so that they are the Sink of both. They are frightfully
ugly, when they grow in Years, especially the women.” There is, how
ever/ an earlier description of these peoples from which the author seems to
have partly borrowed his ideas. Nearly the same words are given in William
Bosman’s work on Guinea, published at the end of the 1 /th century. Is
not this picture true of Mulattoes as a class all over the world ? Bosman
says (ioc. Cii. 141):—“Though I have been tedious in this, I hope you will
pardon it; for I must own my Itch of Scribbling is not yet over, and I cannot
help giving you an account of a wonderful an extraordinary sort of People, I
mean the Tapceyers or Mulattoes; a race begotten by the Europeans upon the
Negro or Mulatto-Women. This Bastard Strain is made up of a parcel of
profligate Villains, neither true to the Negroes nor us, nor indeed dare they
trust one another; so that you very rarely see them agree together. They
assume the Name of Christians, but are as great Idolators as the Negroes
themselves. Most of the Women are public Whores to the Europeans and
private ones to the Negroes, so that I can hardly give them a character so bad
as they deserve. I can only tell you whatever is in its own Nature worst, in
the Europeans and Negroes is united in them; so that they are the sink of
both. The Men, most of which are Soldiers in our service, are clothed as we
are; but the Women prink up themselves in a particular manner: Those of
any Eashion wear a fine Shift, and over that a short Jacket of silk oi stuff,
without sleeves; which reaches from under the arms to their hips, fastened
only at the shoulders. Upon their heads they wear several caps, one upon
the other; the uppermost of which is of Silk, plated before and round at the
top, to make it fit soft, upon all which they have a sort of Fillet, which comes
twice or thrice around the Head. Thus dressed they make no small show.
On the lower part of their body they are clothed as the Neyro-Women are;
and those who are poor are only distinguishable by their dress: they going
naked in the upper part of their body.
“ The whole Brood, when young, are far from handsome, and when old, are
only fit to fright children to their beds. If a painter were obliged to paint
Envy, I could wish him no better original to draw after than an old MulattoWornan. In process of time, their Bodies become speckled with white, brown,
and yellow spots, like the Tigers, which they also resemble in their barbarous
natures. But I shall here leave them, for fear it may be thought that I am
prejudiced by hatred against ’em; but so far from that, that there is not a
single person who hath anything to do with them but he must own they are
not worth speaking to.”
D 2
�36
ON THE NEGRO’S PLACE IN NATURE.
mit? however, that there are instances of the pure Negro
showing great powers of memory, such as the acquirement of
languages; but we must also remember that memory is one of
the lowest mental powers. Numerous instances have been
collected by different partisan writers to show that the Negro
is equal intellectually to the European; but an examination of
these cases nearly invariably leads to the conclusion that there
has been much exaggeration in the statements made by writers
as to the aptitudes of the Negro for education and improvement.
The exhibition of cases of intelligent Negroes in the saloons
of the fashionable world by so-called “ philanthropists ”* has
frequently been nothing but mere imposture. In nearly every
case in which the history of these cases has been investigated,
it has been found that these so-called Negroes are the offspring
of European and African parents. I propose on some future
occasion to lay before you evidence to show, that nearly all the
Negroes who are asserted to have arrived at any mental distinc
tion had European blood in their veins : and think I shall be
able to show that of the fifteen celebrated Negroes whose his
tories were collected by Abbe Gregoire there is not one who
is of pure Negro blood. Some writers who advocate the
specific difference of the Negro from the European have very
injudiciously admitted that occasionally the Negro is equal
in intellect to the European, but this admission has materially
* The following words of Thomas Carlyle deserve to be recorded in every
discussion on the Negro:—“ Sunk in deep froth oceans of ‘ Benevolence/
‘ Fraternity/ ‘ Emancipation-principle/ ‘ Christian Philanthropy/ and other
most amiable looking, but most baseless, and in the end baleful and all
bewildering jargon, sad product of a sceptical eighteenth century, and of
poor human hearts left destitute of any earnest guidance, and disbelieving
that there ever was any, Christian or heathen, and reduced to believe in
rosepink sentimentalism alone, and to cultivate the same under its Christian,
anti-Christian, broad-brimmed, Brutus-headed, and other forms—has not the
human species gone strange roads during that period ? And poor Exeter
Hall, cultivating the broad-brimmed form of Christian sentimentalism and
long talking, and bleating and braying in that strain, has it not worked out
results ? Our West India legislatings, with their spoutings, anti-spoutings,
and interminable jangle and babble; our twenty millions down on the na.il
for blacks of our- own; thirty gradual millions more, and many brave British
lives to boot, in watching blacks of other people’s; and now, at last, our
ruined sugar estates, differential sugar duties, ‘ immigration loan/ and beau
tiful blacks sitting there up to the ears in pumpkins, and doleful whites
sitting here without potatoes to eat; never, till now, I think, did the sun
look down on such a jumble of human nonsenses.”
�ON THE NEGROES PLACE IN NATURE.
37
weakened their argument in favour of a specific difference. If
this is so, let me ask those who hold such an opinion to give
the name of one pure Negro who has ever distinguished him
self as a man of science, as an author, a statesman, a warrior,
a poet, an artist. Surely, if there is equality in the mental
development of human races, some one instance can be quoted.
From all the evidence we have examined, we see no reason to
believe that the pure Negro even advances further in intellect
than an intelligent European boy of fourteen years of age.
Many writers have mentioned the precocity of the Negro
children. Sir C. Lyell has observed : “ Up to fourteen years
*
of age black children advance as fast as the whites
and Eliot
Warburton has remarked! that the modern Egyptian “when
young, is remarkably precocious in intellect, and learns with
facility. As he grows up, his intelligence seems to be dulled
or diminished: he has no genius for discovery, and though apt
in acquiring rudiments, he is incapable of generalising. He
fills subordinate departments well, but appears incapable of
taking or of keeping a lead/-’ Sir C. Lyell expresses his sur
prise at the results of the mixture of some European blood with
the Negro, and thinks “it a wonderful fact, psychologically
considered, that we should be able to trace the phenomena of
hybridity even into the world of intellect and reason.” It would,
indeed, be remarkable if all men were endowed with the same
instincts; but not so wonderful if we do not accept such an
unfounded hypothesis. The pure Negro seems incapable of
much mental cultivation; and Archbishop Sumner's muchtalked-of “ improveable reason,” as a distinction between men
and animals, only finds a limited application in the Negro race.
The reason of animals is improved to some extent by domesti
cation and training, and this is all we can say of the Negro.
Dr. Madden observes : “ It will be seen by all the answers the
missionary gentlemen in our different settlements have given to
my queries respecting the mental capacity of Negro children,
that they are considered universally, in that respect, equal to
European children, and by some even quicker, in their percep
* Second Journey to the United States, vol. i, p. 105.
f The Crescent and the Cross.
�38
OX THE NEGRO’S PLACE IN NATURE.
tions, and more lively in their powers of apprehension.” To
which Dr. R. Clarke adds : “ This is observable from the ages
*
of five to twelve or thirteen years j but from that period of life
to the age of eighteen or twenty, it becomes less strongly
marked, and there appears to be less activity in the mental
faculties.”
Professor Owen gives it as his opinion f that we are unable
“ to appreciate or conceive of the distinction between the psy
chical phenomena of a Chimpanzee and of a Bosjesman, or of
an Aztec with arrested brain growth ;” but we are able
clearly to appreciate the psychological distinction between
the Negro and the Chimpanzee : just as we see that there are
decided mental and moral distinctions between the European
and the Negro. We fully admit, however, that the psychical
distinction is simply a question of degree and not of kind.
The day is not far distant when we shall be able to analyse
the mental character of the Negro far more minutely than we
can do in the present infant state of psychological science. J In
* Sierra Leone, p. 34.
f Journal of the Proceedings of the Linnean Society of London, 1857, p. 20.
' J Bruner-Bey thus speaks of the Psychology of the Negro:—“ The mani
festations of the affective and intellectual faculties of the Negro may be
placed in parallel with his physical type. Sensuality is the great lever of
his propensities; from his imitative talent result the qualities which demand
our esteem. The first renders him an eminently sociable being; by the
second he becomes an artist of a secondary rank. Solitude is insupportable
to him ; song and dance are indispensable wants. Materialist in the main,
he is in this respect below the more refined Chinese; but, like the latter, he
prefers suicide to great privations. He preferentially selects the most violent
means to attain this object; he suffocates himself by reversing his tongue
towards the larynx; he throws himself from precipices; he drowns himself.
He rarely takes the initiative in anything. In spiritual things he repro
duces, but is not productive. It was only after having acquired the know
ledge of the existence of letters among other peoples that an individual of
the Vei tribe invented an alphabetic primer, the greatest effort which the
Negro has ever made in the cultivation of science. The eminently imitative
nature of the Negro even reveals itself in that part in which the creative
faculty of every race reflects itself; viz., language. It appears to me evident
that the Negro in the structure of his languages has endeavoured to produce
a copy of all the systems known without attaining the perfection of any
oririnal. The same remark applies to the ideas and conceptions referring to
regions of the invisible world, towards which the human mind at all times,
and in all regions, soared to attempt the solution of the highest problems.
The adoration of natural objects, of stones, trees, &c., of the sun, as well of
the names of ancestors, demonology, the attribution of superior powers to
objects made by the hand of man, divination by the inspection of entrails,
human sacrifices, and anthropophagy,—for a mystical object all this found its
place in the soul of the Negro, as amongst us in times past; but he surpasses
the Scputic,, the Aryan, and even the Chinese, in having completely forgotten
�ON THE NEGROES PLACE IN NATURE.
39
dwelling on the mental character of the Negro we must, there
fore, for the present, rely on the general observations of those
the signification of the symbol. For him animals would speak the language
of man if they were not too lazy. He has probably invented the fable in
approachino- by the excess of his instincts, the brute to man. It is specially
south of the Equator that the Negro is heavily enchained by a fatal supersti
tion. Living in continued fear of being bewitched, the simple suspicion of
it induces him to immolate hecatombs of innocents. The Judgment of God
of the ancient gallants of the North of Europe is not unknown to him, but
he prefers poison for the ordeal of suspected persons. Moreover, the Negro
takes the world as he finds it, and he neither imagines a system of cosmogony
nor any spiritual theory on the attributes of a superior being. On the other
band, he readily accepts Islamism, and he probably would never oppose to
the introduction of the sublime doctrine of fraternal love that desperate
resistance shown by the ancient Saxons and Scandinavians.
“ Another point in the psychology of the Negro remains to be examined,
and it is not the least important one. I would speak of the facility with
which he loses his equilibrium when passing from one extreme to the other,
frequently without any appreciable motive, of that contradiction in which he
presents himself in his social relations, and the excesses of which he is
capable. Patient towards a master who illtreats him, he assassinates one who
has cherished him. Defending his cabin with ferocious obstinacy, he would
sell his children for a piece of stuff. A kneeling slave before a king of his
blood, he would condemn him to death when he is tired of him. ‘ You please
no longer men or women, old men or children, sheep or fowls/ say the
Negroes of the Sudan to their Sultan, to signify to him that it is time he
should execute himself. Caring little about the chastity of his daughters,
and prostituting his slaves, the Negro assures himself during his absence of
the fidelity of his wife by mechanical means, and he becomes an assassin on
the mere suspicion of her adultery. Nevertheless, the Negress has more
liberty than Islam women, and she is respected in war. Abusing the weaker
sex, and deprecating her even by the difference of aliments which he gives
her, he nevertheless accepts a woman as his sovereign, according prerogatives
to the Queen-mother, and regulating the rights of succession as the peoples
of Asia who live in a state of polyandry. A mutual exchange of the occu
pations of the two sexes is not rare, even among the Negroes of the Sudan.
The women cultivate the soil, and the man spins cotton; he guards the fields,
she goes to war. The same contradiction is observed in other things which
touch the interest of the Negro. Particularly anxious about the arrange
ments of the interior of his cabin, he remains naked outside in the heat of
the day and the comparatively excessive cold of the night. Very domestic
and attached to the soil, the Negro travels over the great continent from
one end to the other, either for traffic or to fulfil some religious duties.
Whole nations are continually on the move, and gipsies would find their
brothers among the Negro race.
“ The Negro is not cruel by nature; he remains as far in this respect from the
bloody refinement of the Chinese as from the atrocious proceedings of the
Aryan Persians. Still the dynasties of Wadai blind their nearest male
relations; the despot of the Moluwas mutilates and skins those condemned
to death. The civilised Bornoui cuts off the thighs of his war prisoners,
and the Mousgous skin the backs of their horses to have a firmer seat.
But they do not put their slaves to the plough like some tribes of Touaregs.
The punishments inflicted by the Negro on his equals, savour, however,
more or less of barbarism.”
“ Let us not, however, forget that these excesses do not constitute the rule,
and that ‘the black man is to the white man what woman is to man.in
general, a loving being and a being of pleasure/ We cite with conviction
the words of Golbery, ‘ the Negro is generally sober, industrious, an excel-
�40
ON THE NEGRO’S PLACE IN NATURE.
unbiassed travellers and others who have been much associated
with the Negro race. In the first place we will see what is the
evidence recently published by our English consuls, who have
the best opportunities of judging of the character of the people
amongst whom they are placed.
Consul Hutchinson, who spent no less than eighteen years
on the West coast of Africa, and who is as competent a judge
as any man now living, says that “ his own observations on the
*
African tribes tend to show that the African is not exactly the
style of ‘ man and a brother which mistaken enthusiasts for
*
his civilisation depict him to be.
**
He gives the result of a ten
*
years attendance at the Missionary school at Cape Palmas of
one of his servants, a Kruman, and says that at the end he was
asked what he knew of God ? He replied : “ God be very good ;
He made two things—one sleep and the other Sunday, when
no person had to work.
f
**
Consul Hutchinson says that “ the
thirst for each other’s blood, which seems a daily habit amongst
so many of the Negro tribes in Western Africa, appears to me
to be incompatible with ordinary notions of common humanity.
**
He says that for scores of years European missionaries and
English traders have mixed with them in social intercourse,
lent and patient workman, not wanting skill; he governs his family with
sagacity and dignity.’ We also subscribe the judgment of Mungo Park,
that 'the Negro is compassionate by nature,’ and we may add that the Ne
gress is even in a state of slavery capable of the greatest devotion.
“ Improvidence they have in common with all human races who live in a
more or less primitive state, and pride of the stronger against the weaker is
not foreign to the Negro.
“ The portrait which L. Magyar traces of the peoples east of Angola is not
favourable. The Djambandis, though polite to strangers, are described as
suspicious, false, malicious, and thievish; the Djohoes are still worse, specially
vicious to strangers. They contrast with the Moluwas, who are full of atten
tion to their guests. Most of the inhabitants of the Lobal are ferocious
brigands. The judgment of Mr. Kauffmann on the Negroes of the White
Nile is generally not more favourable.
“ In social respects the Negro has at least attained the position of shepherd
and agriculturist. Besides this some Negro-peoples have founded, inde
pendent of all foreign influence, a sort of civilisation and considerable
states ; they possess the art of metallurgy and the talent for trade to a high
degree, and they well know how to profit by the foibles of their masters;
their answers, for instance, are always shaped according to the desire of the
questioner.”
* Transactions of the Ethnological Society, vol. i, New Series, p. 327.
f “All missionaries praise the African for his strict observance of the Sabbath.
He would have 365 sabbaths in the year if possible, and he would as scru
pulously observe them all.”—Wanderings in West Africa, vol. i, p. 266.
�ON THE NEGROES PLACE IN NATURE.
41
yet they still cling “ to their gris-gris, jujus,, fetichism and
cannibalism with as much pertinacity as they did many hun
dred years ago.” He adds : “ Here we have all the appliances
of our arts, our science and our Christianity, doing no more
good than did the wheat in the parable that was sown amongst
the briars and the thorns. To attempt civilising such a race
before they are humanised appears to me to be beginning at
the wrong end. I have passed many a hour in cogitating and
endeavouring to fabricate some sort of education likely to root
out the fell spirit that dictates human sacrifices and cannibal
ism ; but I fear years must elapse before any educational prin
ciple, in its simplest form, can produce an amendment on
temperaments such as they possess.”
Consul Burton considers that M. Du Chailhfis remarks con
*
cerning the commercial shrewdness and eagerness, the greedi
ness and rascality of the Negro, apply to him everywhere in
his natural state; that an abnormal development of adhesive
ness, in popular language a peculiar power of affection, is the
brightest spot in the Negro character; as in children,, it is
somewhat tempered by caprice, especially under excitement,
yet it has entitled him to the gratitude of many a traveller.
Exaggeration, he considers, is the characteristic of the mind of
both the Eastf and West African. He says that “ they justly
hold labour as an evil inferior only to death/-’
These are the opinions which have been published by the
* Transactions of the Ethnological Society, vol. i, New Series, p. 317.
t Captain Burton thus speaks of the Coast clans of Eastern Africa■__
Supersubtle and. systematic liars, they deceive where duller men would tell
the truth; the lie direct is no insult, and the offensive word ‘ Muono-o ’ (liar)
enters largely into every dialogue. They lie like Africans, objectlessly
needlessly, wnen sure of speedy detection: when fact would be more profit
able than.falsehood; they have not discovered with the civilised knave, that
‘honesty is the best policy/ they lie till their fiction becomes subjectively
fact. W ith them the lie is no mental exertion, no exercise of ingenuity no
concealment, nor mere perversion of the truth: it is apparently a local’in
stinctive peculiarity in the complicated madness of poor human nature. The
most solemn and religious oaths are with them empty words; they breathe
an atmosphere of falsehood, manoeuvre and contrivance, wasting about the
mere, nothings of life—upon a pound of grain or a yard of cloth—ingenuity
of iniquity enough to win and keep a crown. And they are treacherous as
false; with them the salt has no signification, and gratitude is unknown even
by name. —Lake Regions of Central Africa. By R. F. Burton. 1861. Vol.
�42
ON THE NEGROb PLACE IN NATURE.
last two consuls who have written on the subject., and we shall
now examine the evidence of some other witnesses.
*
M. Du Chaillu describes the general characteristics of the
tribes he visited who spoke the Mpongwe language as far
superior to the Negroes of Congo. He saysf “the Negroes
* Truthful William Bosman published the following as his opinions re
specting the Negroes of Guinea in 1705 (loc. cit., p. 117).
“ The Negroes are all, without exception, crafty, villanous and fraudulent,
and very seldom to be trusted, being sure to slip no opportunity of cheating
an European, nor indeed one another. A man of integrity is as rare among
them as a white falcon and their fidelity seldom extends farther than to their
masters; and it would be very surprising if, upon a scrutiny into their lives,
we should find any of them whose perverse nature would not break out some
times, for they indeed seem to be born and bred villains. All sorts of base
ness having got such sure footing in them, that ’tis impossible to lye con
cealed; and herein they agree very well with what authors tell us of the
Muscovites. These degenerate vices are accompanied with their sisters—
Sloth and Idleness, to which they are so prone, that nothing but the utmost
necessity can force them to labour. They are besides so incredibly careless
and stupid, and are so little concerned at their misfortunes, that ’tis hardly
to be observed, by any change in them, whether they have met with any good
or ill success.”
Mr. J. W. Jackson makes the following observations on the Negro
(Ethnology and Phrenology, 1863, p. 35):—“ The radical defect of the Negro
is want of due nervous development. His brain is less in proportion to his
body than that of any other grand division of humanity, and as a result, the
involuntary and animal functions altogether preponderate. His flat foot,
his long heel, his imperfect pelvis, his powerful stomach, his prognathous
jaw, his enormous mouth, and his pug nose, are in perfect correspondence
with his imperfectly developed brain, in which correspondently passion
and affection rule principle and faculty, the basilar and posterior develop
ments being predominant over the coronal and anterior. Except in a
few unfavourable instances, however, he does not exist on the continent
in his lowest form; for it is the Oceanic Negro who is the almost irre
claimable savage, while the African is the improvable barbarian type of
his race. The former is useless even as a slave, while the latter is eminently
valuable, because he has been broken to work and obedience, and has that
hereditary aptitude for sustained toil, of which the utter savage is so gene
rally devoid. Hence, despite his present degradation, he obviously belongs
to the redeemable families of humanity. He is the labourer of the tropics,
and is not going to perish out, like a wild Indian, because his buffalo grounds
have been enclosed by the white faces. He has his place on the earth which
none can take from him, and what we have to attempt is not his extirpation,
but improvement. Hence, a study of his character and capabilities is of the
utmost importance. From temperament he is slow, but from organisation
he is persistent, his lymphatic nature being sustained by a considerable
amount of firmness and self-esteem. He is not skilful, his mechanical
ingenuity being that of a child; nor is he capable of delicate manipulation,
for which his entire organisation is too coarse. His perceptive faculties are
stronger than his reflective or imaginative, and he dwells in the real rather
than the ideal. He never rises from a fact to a principle, or re-creates beauty
from the faultless beau-ideal of artistic conception. He has but little reve
rence for the past, and no very brilliant anticipation of the future, being
from the overwhelming strength of his sensuous nature swallowed up in the
present.”
f Transactions of the Ethnological Society, vol. i, New Series, p. 306.
�ON THE NEGROES PLACE IN NATURE.
43
possess an imaginative mind., are astute speakers, sharp traders,
great liars, possessing great powers of dissimulation, and are
far from being in many respects the stupid people they are
believed to be. In everything that does not require mental
labour and forethought, they seemed to me to learn almost as
fast as any amongst the more intellectual races to a certain
point/'’ He further affirms that they have little power of fore
thought or power of reflection, and that there is “ a total lack
of generalisation.” He also says, that although these people
“ are often treacherous, they have noble qualities, given to hos
pitality, and the women show great kindness of heart, especially
when one takes into account the way they are treated.”
*
Brehm says that “ there seems to be a complete absence of
moral sentiment amongst the natives of East Sudan, who not
merely excuse theft, murder, and treachery, but consider these
actions as praiseworthy in man. They first learned under a
Turkish ruler to distinguish murder from justifiable homicide
in war. Lying and deceitfulness are considered as marks of
mental superiority; and those who suffer death on the gallows
are buried with the same honours as the rich merchant or the
sheik.”
Count Grdrzj- narrates of the Negroes in Cuba, “ Their cha
racter is very degraded; the moral feeling entirely undevel
oped; all their actions proceed from animal impulse, or a
cunning calculation of their own advantage. Generosity and
indulgence exhibited by the white man they consider as weak
ness. Power imposes upon them, and excites their hatred,
which would become dangerous were they not aware of their
powerlessness. The only efficacious punishment for them is
the whip. They delight in sowing discord; are thievish and
revengeful; void of any religious feeling, they are given to
the crudest superstition. Their frame, however, is well-de
veloped and powerful; their teeth magnificent:J their legs
slender; they digest like beasts of prey.” This certainly is a
* Reise-skizzen aus Nordost-Afrika, vol. i, pp. 162, 175. 1855.
+ Heise um die Welt (Voyage round the World) in 1844. Stuttgard, 1853.
I Mr. Louis Fraser says—“Their mode of mastication is very peo.n1ia.r_,
being more like a monkey than a man.”—J. H.
�44
ON THE NEGROES PLACE IN NATURE.
severe judgment, and may be partly explained by the large
amount of mixed blood in Cuba.
Colonel Hamilton Smith thus describes the Negro. “ The
*
Negro is habitually dormant, but when roused shows his emotion
by great gesticulations regardless of circumstances. War is a
passion that excites in them a brutal disregard of human feel
ings ; it entails the deliberate murder of prisoners, and victims
are slain to serve the manes of departed chiefs. Even canni
balism is frequent among the tribes of the interior. Notwith
standing the listless torpidity caused by excessive heat, the
perceptive faculties of the children are far from contemptible;
they have a quick apprehension of the ridiculous, often surpass
ing the intelligence of the White, and only drop behind them
about the twelfth year, when the reflective powers begin to have
the ascendancy. Collectively, the untutored Negro mind is
confiding and single-hearted, naturally kind and hospitable.
Both sexes are easily ruled, and appreciate what is good under
the guidance of common justice and prudence. Yet where so
much that honours human nature remains in apathy, the typical
woolly-haired races have never invented or reasoned out a theo
logical system, discovered an alphabet, framed a grammatical lan
guage, nor made the least step in science or art. They have never
comprehended what they have learned, or retained a civilisation
taught them by contact with more refined nations as soon as
that contact had ceased. They have at no time formed great
political states, nor commenced a self-evolving civilisation.
Conquest with them has been confined to kindred tribes, and
produced only slaughter. Even Christianity of more than three
centuries^ duration in Congo has scarcely excited a progressive
civilisation. Thus, even the good qualities given to the Negro
by the bounty of nature, have seemed only to make him a slave
trodden down by every remorseless foot, and to brand him for
ages with the epithet of outcast. The marked, unceasing proof
of a curse as old as the origin of society, not even deserving
human forbearance, and true it is that the worst slavery is his
lot even at home, for he is there exposed to the constant peril
of becoming also a victim slaughtered with the most revolting
* Unity of the Human Species, p. 190-7.
�ON THE NEGROES PLACE IN NATURE.
45
torments. Tyrant of his blood, he traffics in slavery as it were
merchandise, makes war purposely to capture neighbours, and
sells even his own wives and children.”
Van Amringe observes of the Negro race: “ Even after
*
having lived for centuries with the white people, from whom they
have received every possible instruction for the purpose of de
veloping an attribute which would be so serviceable to them, as
well as those whom they serve, it is very far from having any
virtue for which they are distinguished, or even trusted. The
Canaanite (Neg’ro) is indolent, careless, sensual, tyrannical, pre
datory, sullen, boisterous, and jovial. Such are the specific
characteristics, and the sensual relations are founded upon them.
It has been a favourite theory with some visionary philanthro
pists that intermarriages of the different species would be
highly favourable to the race ; but we have never heard of any
of them who was willing to commence the practice in their own
families. There is certainly no method that could possibly
be devised, which would as certainly and as expeditiously de
grade the whole human family as amalgamation. If there is
any hope for the improvement of the condition of the dark races,
the history of mankind shows it can only be founded upon the
preservation of Shemitic (White) species. This is the only
species endowed with any power to drag the cumbrous dark
races out of the slough in which they have been wallowing for
ages.”
Burmeister, an excellent observer, says :f “I need not en
large on the long hands, slender fingers, and flat feet of the
African. Any one who has ever visited a menagerie, cannot
fail to have observed the long hand, slender fingers, long nails,
*
the flat foot, the deficient calf, and compressed shank and thigh
of the apes, which so much resemble in every respect the peculi
arities of the Negro. I have often tried to obtain an insight
into the mind of the Negro; but it never was worth the
trouble; the only available result obtained was, that there is
not much mental life in the Negro, and that all his thoughts
Theories
Tork'>18^}eSt'>'9atWn
t -R. nach Brasitien.
1857.
tlie Natura1 History of Man.
New
�46
ON THE NEGRO’S PLACE IN NATURE.
and actions were merely directed to the lowest requirements of
human existence. There is something in the Negro like the
cunning forwardness of the monkey tribe., which renders any
very familiar intercourse, such, as we have with an European
servant, impossible.'”
Carl Vogt has recently observed : “ Most of the characters
*
of the Negro viewed externally remind us irresistibly of the
ape; the short neck, the long lean limbs, the projecting pendu
lous belly, all this affords a glimmer of the ape beneath the
human envelope, such similitudes are equally detected on ex
amining the structure of individual parts.”
Mr. Winwood Readef says, “ It must be acknowledged, that
putting all exceptions aside, the women of Africa are very
inferior beings. Their very virtues, with their affections and
their industry, are those of well trained domestic animals.
But if the women of Africa are brutal, the men of Africa are
feminine. Their faces are smooth, their breasts are frequently
as full as those of European women; their voices are never
gruff or deep. Their fingers are long; and they can be very
proud of their rosy nails. While the women are nearly always
ill-shaped after their girlhood; the men have gracefully moulded
limbs, and always are after a feminine type—the arms rounded,
the legs elegantly formed, without too much muscular develop
ment, and the feet delicate and small.” . . . . “A. king of
Ashanti cut off the hands of a slave, and bade her scratch his
head for vermin with the stumps. If any one had accused him
of barbarity he would not have understood the accusation.
It was his idea of a good practical joke.” J He continues, “ It
* Vorlesungen uber den JVEenschen (Seine Stellung in der Schopfung und in
der Geschichte der Er de). Giessen, 1863 (seventh, lecture).
f Savage Africa, ch. 36.
j I know not on what authority Mr. Winwood Reade has made this asser
tion, but Bosman records a similar case which was perpetrated by Anqua
about a.d. 1691. After recording innumerable cruelties, he goes on to say.
that one of Anqua’s slaves touched a new coral belonging to one of his wives,
“ But Anqua so resented this innocent freedom, that as soon as I was out of
the camp, he caused both wife and slave to be put to death, drinking their
blood, as he useth to do those of his enemies. For such another trivial crime, .
a little before, he had caused the hands of one of his wives to be cut off, after
which, in derision, he used to command her to look his head for vermin,
which being impossible with her stumps, afforded him no small diversion.”—
A New and Accurate Description of the Coast of Guinea, by William Bosman,
translated from the Dutch, 1705, p. 24.
�ON THE NEGRO’S PLACE IN NATURE.
47
will be understood that the typical Negroes with whom the
slavers are supplied, represent the dangerous, the destitute,
and the diseased classes of African society. They may be
compared to those which in England fill our jails, our work
houses, and our hospitals. So far from being equal to us, the
polished inhabitants of Europe, as some ignorant people sup
pose, they are immeasurably below the Africans themselves.
The typical Negro is the true savage of Africa, and I must
paint the deformed anatomy of his mind as I have already done
that of his body. The typical Negroes dwell in petty tribes
where all are equal, except the women, who are slaves; where
property is common, and where, consequently, there is no
property at all; where one may recognise the Utopia of
philosophers, and observe the saddest and basest spectacles
which humanity can afford. The typical Negro, unrestrained
by moral laws, spends his days in sloth and his nights in de
bauchery. He smokes haschisch till he stupifies his senses, or
falls into convulsions; he drinks palm-wine till he brings on a
loathsome disease; he abuses children, and stabs the poor
brute of a woman whose hands keep him from starvation, and
makes a trade of his own offspring. He swallows up his youth
in premature vice ; he lingers through a manhood of disease ;
and his tardy death is hastened by those who no longer care to
find him food. Such are the ‘ men and brothers’ for whom
their friends claim, not protection, but equality! They do not
merit to be called our brethren; but let us call them our
children. Let us educate them carefully, and in time we may
elevate them; not to our own level—that, I fear, can never be
—but to the level of those from whom they have fallen.”
This last remark is made in the supposition that the typical
Negro is degenerated from some higher African race; but we
think such an hypothesis is not warranted by history, archgeo
logy, or any well established facts. Mr. Reade’s observations
were apparently chiefly made on the Gaboon, and his descrip
tion does not quite agree with the accounts generally given of
the Negroes in the Bights or Windward coast. Mr. Reade’s
terminology is far from satisfactory. All typical Negroes are
Africans ; but all Africans are not Negroes.
�48
ON THE NEGROES PLACE IN NATURE.
Dr. Van Evrie, of New York, who has paid considerable at
tention to the character of the Negro, and had ample oppor
tunities for observation, thus describes the Negro :—“ But
*
while the analysis of a single bone or of a single feature of
the Negro is thus sufficient to demonstrate the specific cha
racter, or to show the diversity of race, that great fact is still
more obviously and with equal certainty revealed in the form,
attitude, and other external qualities. The Negro is incapable
of an erect or direct perpendicular posture. The general
structure of his limbs, the form of the pelvis, the spine, the way
the head is set on the shoulders, in short, the tout ensemble
of the anatomical formation forbids an erect position. But
while the whole structure is thus adapted to a slightly stooping
posture, the head would seem to be the most important agency;
for with any other head, or the head of any other race, it
would be impossible to retain an upright position at all.
But with the broad forehead and small cerebellum of the white
man, it is perfectly obvious that the Negro would no longer
possess a centre of gravity; and therefore, those philanthropic
people who would ‘ educate^ him into intellectual equality, or
change the mental organism of the Negro, would simply render
him incapable of standing on his feet, or of an upright position,
on any terms. Everyone must have remarked this peculiarity
in the form and attitude of the Negro. His head is thrown
upwards and backwards, showing a certain though remote ap
proximation to the quadrumana, both in its actual formation
and the manner in which it is set on his shoulders. The narrow
forehead and small cerebrum—the centre of the intellectual
powers, and the projection of the posterior portion,—the centre
of the animal functions, render the Negro head radically and
widely different from that of the white man. Thus an anato
mist, with the Negro and ourang-outang before him, after a
careful comparison, would say, perhaps, that Nature herself
had been puzzled where to place them, and had finally compro
mised the matter by giving them an exactly equal inclination
to the form and attitude of each other.”
Dr. Louis Buchnerf has drawn a most graphic picture of
* On Negroes and Negro Slavery, p. 93-4-7.
f Kraft und Stoff. Seventh edition.
1861.
�49
ON THE NEGROES PLACE IN NATURE.
some of the physical characters of the Negro :—“ An uninter
rupted series of the most various transitions and analogies
connect the animal world, from the lowest to the highest.
Even man, who in his spiritual pride deems himself elevated
above the animal creation, is far from forming an exception to
this rule. The Ethiopian race connects him by a number of
the most striking analogies with the animal world. The long
arms, the form of the foot, the thin calf, the long small hands,
the general leanness, the undeveloped nose, the projecting jaw,
the low receding forehead, the small head, the narrow pelvis,
the pendulous belly, the deficient beard, the colour of the
skin, the disgusting odour, the uncleanliness, the grimaces in
talking, the shrieking voice, are the many marks which mani
festly exhibit the most decided approach of the Negro to the
ape. That he also resembles him in his intellectual capacity,
is sufficiently known and established by the best observers.”
M. Pruner Bey, one of the most eminent of living Anthro
pologists, has written the most complete memoir on the Negro
yet published on this subject.
*
Many years ago he thus ex
pressed himselff respecting the psychological character of
the Negro:—“ The capacity of the Negro is limited to imitation. The prevailing impulse is for sensuality and rest. No
sooner are the physical wants satisfied, all psychical effort ceases,
and the body abandons itself to sexual gratification and rest.
The family relations are weak; the husband or father is quite
careless. Jealousy has only carnal motives, and the fidelity
of the female is secured by mechanical contrivances. Drunken
ness, gambling, sexual gratification, and ornamentation of the
body, are the most powerful levers in the life of the Negro.
The whole industry is limited to ornaments. Instead of cloth
ing himself he ornaments his body. Like certain animals, the
Negro seems apathetic under pain. The explosions of passion
* By the kind permission of the Council, I have been able to print nearly
the whole of his last Memoir on the Negro. Some portions are quoted in the
text, other parts will be found in copious notes, and I have only omitted the
introduction which is merely descriptive of the different African races. Feeling
sure that Anthropologists will duly estimate the great value of his treatise
on the Negro, I am proud to be the means of M. Pruner-Bey’s labours
being made generally known to the English public.
t JEgypten’s Naturgeschichte. Erlangen, 1847.
E
�50
ON THE NEGRO’S PLACE IN NATURE.
occur when least expected, but are not lasting. The tempera
ment of the Negro has been called choleric, but it is only so to
a certain extent. It is a momentary ebullition, followed in
stantly by perfect apathy. Life has for the Negro no longer
any value when he cannot supply the physical wants ; he never
resists by increased activity, but prefers to die in a state of
apathy, or he commits suicide. The Negro has no love for
war; he is only driven to it by hunger. War, from passion or
destructiveness, is unknown to him.” This is a sufficiently
clear and truthful picture, and the following summary, with
which M. Pruner Bey concluded his paper, presented to the Paris
Anthropological Society, is equally to be commended for
* M. Pruner-Bey also says: “It results from the examination of the
organization of the Negro, that it is admirably adapted to the geographical
position he occupies. The dark layer in his external integument, and its
velvety character, like all blackened and rough bodies, favour the radiation
of heat, and act as coolers. Experience has proved that black crape protects
also the face from the solar reflection in the ascent of snow-covered moun
tains. The great development of the glandular system of the skin favours
the secretions, refreshing the skin, and protecting it by an unctuous secre
tion. The thickness of all the layers of the skin protects the Negro from the
night frost in his usual condition of nudity. The same considerations apply
to the internal integument; the mucous membrane, with its glutinous and
abundant secretion; and to all glands, without exception, which by their
reaUy enormous volume, in harmony with the excitation by heat, favour and
facilitate the change, and the reproduction of organic matter so rapidly used
up in the. torrid zone. Do we pass beyond the limits of science, and lose
ourselves in the vicious circle of teleology, if we venture to suppose that even
the infantile form of the brain of the Negro may have its relative advan
tages ? What has the noble Hindoo become under an Indian sun, drowned
in a sea of spiritualism the most obscure, with his cranium, which by its
admirable harmony, its graceful mould, seems exactly to resemble the
organic egg which received the Divine breath of Brahma ? He has, it is true,
fulfilled an eminent task; but for many centuries he has been a being
severed from terrestrial regions, and of little use to his fellow beings. Let
us, finally, endeavour to assign to the Negro his place in relation to the
quadrumana, to which some authors seriously approximate him, and to that
of other human races, which either make use of or despise the Negro. As
for me, the moment that an organised being uses for standing and motion
that admirable pedestal, the narrow base of which supports an enormous
weight; the moment he makes use of the instrument of instruments—the Land;
when he expresses his sentiments, his thoughts, his fears, and hopes by speech,
I look upon it as a new order of things. While recognising the undoubted
value of homologies, which form the bases of zoological science, I cannot,
but admire the simplicity of the means employed by creative wisdom to sepa
rate man from the anthropomorphous ape. The hair on the skin is reduced;
a suture is suppressed to draw the teeth closer, and, though prognathism is
developed, the lips are thickened; the iliac bones are turned aside instead of
being adossed to the vertebral column; the muscles of the thumb are
strengthened; the great toe is fixed; nature finally, instead of the temporal
lobe, selects the anterior lobe of the brain “ there to fashion the instrument of
intelligence which reflects her image.” (Gratiolet.)
�ON THE NEGROES PLACE IN NATURE.
51
its truth, and moderation. “The Negro has always appeared
to me as partaking of the nature both of the child and the old
man. Anatomists worthy of our confidence—Jacquart, Serres,
and Huschke—have, in this sense, interpreted the details of
the anatomy of the Negro. The elongated form of the cranium,
the proportions of the cerebral lobes and their respective forms,
the prominence of the inferior border of the orbits, the flattened
nose, the rounded larynx, the less marked curves of the vetebral column, the lateral compression of the thorax and pelvis,
with the vertical direction of the iliac bones, the elongated
neck of the uterus, the proportion of the parts composing the
extremities, the relative simplicity of the cerebral convolutions,
etc., are characteristic features of the Negro race, which are
found in the foetus or the infant of the Aryan race, in the dif
ferent periods of development. The propensity for amusements,
for material enjoyments, for imitation, and the inconstancy of
affection, are the appanage of the Negro as well as of our
children. The flexuosity of the arteries, the flattening of the
cornea, the weakness of the muscles, the dragging walk, and
the early obliteration of the cranial sutures, the obstinacy and
love of repose are met with in the Negro as in our aged men.
In short, the great curve of human development, and its back
ward direction, appears to be sufficiently extended to appreciate
the differences characterising the Negro race opposed to our
race, always taking in account the differential characters result
ing from adaptation to external conditions. If our interpreta
tion leaves open many gaps, the future may fill them up,
perhaps, in the same sense. If, finally, the Negro, speaking
always figuratively, partakes of the nature of the ape, it must
still be admitted that it is not the most ferocious, malicious,
nor the most pernicious, but rather the most patient, and fre
quently the most useful animal. In any case, an honourable
mediocrity is his inheritance.”
The general deductions we would desire to make are :—1
That there is as good reason for classifying the Negro as a
distinct species from the European, as there is for making
the ass a distinct species from the zebra j and if, in classi
fication, we take intelligence into consideration, there is a far
e 2
�52
ON THE NEGROES PLACE IN NATURE.
greater difference between the Negro and European than
between the gorilla and chimpanzee. 2. That the analogies are
far more numerous between the Negro and apes, than between
the European and apes. 3. That the Negro is inferior intel
lectually to the European. 4. That the Negro is more human
ised when in his natural subordination to the European than
under any other circumstances. 5. That the Negro race can
only be humanised and civilised by Europeans. 6. That Euro
pean civilisation is not suited to the Negroes requirements or
character.
No man who thoroughly investigates with an unbiassed
mind, can doubt, that the Negro belongs to a distinct type.
The term species, in the present state of science, is not satis
factory ; but we may safely say that there is in the Negro that
assemblage of evidence which would, ipso facto, induce an
unbiassed observer to make the European and Negro two
distinct types of man.
The facts I have quoted I believe are sufficient to establish
that the Negro is intellectually inferior to the European, and
that the analogies are far more numerous between the ape
and Negro than between the ape and the European.
We shall not enter at length into the three last propositions.
Suffice it to say, that no subject needs more attention at this
minute than the position which the Negro race is fitted to hold
in Nature. I have said it devolves on the student of the Science
of Man to assign to each race the position which it shall hold.
This is truly a momentous and most difficult problem, but one
which science must not evade. As the student of mechanical
science has given to the world his inductions and discoveries, so
must the student of the Science of Man endeavour to deduce
from actual facts principles of guidance for the relations of one
race of Man to another.
It is painful to reflect on the misery which has been inflicted
on the Negro race, from the prevailing ignorance of Anthropo
logical Science, especially as regards the great question of race.
By our ignorance of the wants and aspirations of the Negro, and
*
* Dr. Van Evrie makes the following remarks respecting the imperfect
accounts we have continually received of the Negro. He says (page 49) :
�ON THE NEGROES PLACE IN NATURE.
53
by a mistaken theory respecting his origin, this country has been
the means of inflicting a prodigious, and, at present, totally un
known amount of mischief on these people. Our Bristol and
Liverpool merchants, perhaps, helped to benefit the race when
they transplanted some of them to America; and our mistaken
legislature has done the Negro race much injury by their
absurd and unwarrantable attempts to prevent Africa from
exporting her worthless or surplus population. All this has
been done on the theoretical assumption of a mental equality
of the different races or species of Man. In an attempt to
benefit the Negro we have brought on him endless misery and
rendered some of the most beautiful and productive islands in
the world of little more use to humanity at large than they
were before the discovery of Columbus.* But men wedded to
a theory become blind to all facts, and will learn nothing from
experience. All the millions of money which have been spent,
and which expenditure has inflicted great hardships on our
own working classes, might have been saved had we taken
the trouble to investigate the character of the Negro race.
“ African travellers, explorers, missionaries, &c., ignorant of the ethnology, of
the physiology, of the true nature of the Negro, and. moreover bitten by
modern philanthropy, a disease more loathsome and fatal to the moral, than
small-pox or plague to the physical nature, have been bewildered, and
perverted, and rendered unfit for truthful observation or useful discovery,
before they set foot on its soil or felt a single flush of its burning sun. With
the monstrous conception that the Negro was a being like themselves, with
the same instincts, wants, &c., the same (latent) mental capacities, all they
saw, felt, or reasoned upon in Africa, was seen through this false medium, and
therefore of little or no value/’
* “ I cannot avoid repeating that Hayti must not be held up as an ex
ample of what can be accomplished by free labour; but that it ought rather
to be the beacon to warn the government of England against an experiment
which may prove absolutely fatal to her colonial system. If it be not wished
that a fate similar to that which has befallen Hayti should overtake our
colonies, that they should be rendered wholly unproductive to the revenue of
the country, and that the property invested in them should be preserved from
destruction, the advisers of the Crown must pause before they listen to the
ill-judged suggestions of enthusiasts; for they must banish from their minds
the idea that the work of cultivation can be made productive by means of free
labour. Such a thing appears to me impossible. The Negro, constituted as
he is, has such an aversion to labour, and so great a propensity for indulgence
and vice, that no prospect of advantage can stimulate him; and as for emu
lation it has not the slightest influence over him. Without force he will sink
into a lethargy, and revert to his primitive savage character, and the only
feasible and effectual plan to promote his civilisation is to persist in those
measures which compel him to labour, inculcate morality, and tend to ex
tirpate those vices which are inherent in the descendents of the African
race.”—Franklin on the Present State of Hayti.
�54
ON THE NEGRO’S PLACE IN NATURE.
Scientific men have yet to do their duty in showing what are
the facts.
It may be said that some of the propositions I have advanced
are in favour of the slave trade. Such, however, is not my own
interpretation of these propositions. No one can be more con
scious of the horrors of the “ slave trade” as conducted at this
time. Nothing can be worse for Africa generally than the con
tinual capture of innocent men and women by brutal Europeans.
Few things can be more horrible than the manner in which
it is attempted to carry these people across the Atlantic.
Nay, more, nothing can be more unjust than to sell any man,
woman, or child, into “ slavery”, as understood by the Greeks
and Romans, where the fife of the slave was absolutely at the
disposal of the master whenever his caprice or fancy thought
fit to take it. We protest against being put forward as advo
cating such views.
But while I say this, I cannot shut my eyes to the fact that
slavery as understood by the ancients does not exist out of
*
Africa, and that the highest type of the Negro race is at pre
sent to be found in the Confederate States of America. Far
superior in intelligence and physique to both his brethren in
Africa and to his “ free” brethren in the Federal States, no
where does the Negro attain to such a long life as in the Con
federate States; and this law formerly obtained in the West
* “ No man maltreats his wild brother so much as the so-called civilised
Negro. He hardly ever addresses his Kruman except by ‘ you jackass !’ and
tells him ten times a day that he considers such fellows as the dirt beneath
his feet. Consequently he is hated and despised withal, as being of the same
colour as, whilst assuming such excessive superiority over, his former equals.
No one, also, is more hopeless about the civilisation of Africa, than the semicivilised African returning to the ‘ home of his fathers.’ One feels how hard
has been his own struggle to emerge from barbarism. He acknowledges in
his own case a selection of species, and he sees no end to the centuries before
there can be a nation equal even to himself. Yet in England, and in books,
he will cry up the majesty of African kings,- he will give the people whom
he thoroughly despises a thousand grand gifts of morals and industry, and
extenuate, or rather ignore, all their- faults and short-comings. I have heard
a Negro assert, with the unblushing effrontery which animates a Negro
speechifying in Exeter Hall, or before some learned society, that, for in
stance, at Lagos—a den of thieves—theft is unknown, and that men leave
their money with impunity in the storehouse, or in the highway After
which he goes home, ‘ tongue in cheek,’ despising the facility with which an
Englishman and his money are parted.”—Wanderings in West Africa, vol. i.
p. 209.
�ON THE NEGRO n PLACE IN NATURE.
55
India Islands before our mistaken interference. Nowhere does
the Negro character shine so highly as it does in his childish
and fond attachment to his master and his family. The Negro
cares far more for his master and mistress than he does for his
own children after they are a few years old. I by no means
join in that indiscriminate abuse of the Negro character which
has been indulged in,, especially by those who have only seen
the Negro in his savage state, or the “ emancipated” (from
work ?) in the West India Islands. On the contrary, there is
much that is to be admired, and more that is useful in the
Negro when properly and kindly treated. Brutal masters there
are in every part of the world: but we must not found a law
on exceptions. Scientific men, therefore, dare not close their
eyes to the clear facts, as to the improvement in mind and body,
as well as the general happiness, which is seen in those parts of
the world in which the Negro is working in his natural
*
subordination to the European. In some respects, the Negro
is certainly not only not inferior, but even far superior to the
European. If, for instance, the European were alone in the
Confederate States of America, these fertile regions would soon
become a barren waste. The Negro is there able to work with
impunity, and does himself and the world generally much good
by his labour.f Occupations and diseases which are fatal to the
* “ Of late, it has become the fashion for the missionary and the lecturer to
deny, in the presence of Exeter Hall, the African’s recognition of the Euro
pean’s superiority. “ The white man,” writes Mr. Robert Campbell, a mulatto,
“ who supposes himself respected in Africa because he is white, is grievously
mistaken.” I distinctly assert the reverse, and every one who has studied
the natural history of man, must have the same opinion.. The same egregi
ous nonsense was once propounded before the Ethnological Society—where
with some ethnology there is no anthropology—by another “African”. And
yet the propounder, the late Mr. Consular Agent .Hansen, whose death, by the
bye, was an honour, and the only honour, to his life, had shaved his wool,
and at the time was wearing a wig of coal-black hair, like a Cherokee’s. Is
imitation no sign of deference ?”—Wanderings in Western Africa, vol. i. p. 269.
f Again, I would call attention to the noble words of Thomas Carlyle.
Speaking of labour, he well says: “ The thing must be done everywhere ;
must is the word. Only it is so terribly difficult to do, and will take genera
tions yet, this of getting our rich European white men ‘ set to work !’ But
yours in the West Indies, my obscure black friends, your work, and the
getting of you set to it, is a simple affair; and by diligence, the West Indian
legislatures, and royal governors, setting their faces fairly to the problem,
will get it done. You are not 'slaves’ now; nor, do I wish, if it can be
avoided, to see you slaves again; but decidedly you will have to be servants
to those that are born wiser than you, that are born lords of you—servants to
�56
ON THE NEGROES PLACE IN NATURE.
Europeans, are quite Harmless to the Negro. By their juxta
position in this part of the world, they confer a material benefit
on each other.
But it may be asked, “ Why remove the Negro from his own
country ?” “ Why not humanise him in Africa ?” No doubt
this sounds very feasible, and no pains should be spared to in
troduce every possible humanising influence into Africa. There
is little doubt that the African is much easier humanised out of
his native land away from all his savage associations; but this
need not prevent us from doing all we can towards civilising
him in his own country.
It has been affirmed on the best authority (although fre
quently denied) that domestic slaves are only sold in Africa for
some crime. No one, we presume, will dare assert that there
are no criminals in Africa ! What shall we do with our crimi
nals may be a problem which is occupying the attention of the
political economist of Africa—like his Majesty the King of
Dahomey—as well as the government of Great Britain. Is
Africa not to be allowed to export her criminals, or are they so
worthless and unmanageable that no people will have them ?
What is to be done with unruly or criminal slaves ? as a king
of Old Calabar said, ff¥ou bind me down not to sell them,
*
tell me it is wrong to kill them ! What must I do with
them ? I will give you some, and then you won’t take them !”
the whites, if they are (as what mortal can doubt they are ?) born wiser than
you. That, you may depend on it, my obscure black friends, is and was
always the law of the world, for you and for all men; to be servants, the
more foolish of us to the more wise, and only sorrow, futility, and disappoint
ment will betide both, till both in some approximate degree get to conform
to the same. Heaven’s laws are not repealable by earth, however earth may
try—and it has been trying hard, in some directions, of late ! I say, no well
being, and in the end no being at all, will be possible for you or us, if the
law of Heaven is nob complied with. And if ‘ slave’ mean essentially
‘ servant hired for life,’—for life, or by a contract of long continuance, and
not easily dissoluble—I ask, whether in all human things, the ‘ contract of
long continuance ’ is not precisely the contract to be desired were the right
terms once found for it ? Servant hired for life, were the right terms once found,
which I do not pretend they are, seems to me much preferable to servant
hired for the month, or by contract dissoluble in a day. An ill-situated
servant that;—that servant grown to be nomadic; between whom and his
master a good relation cannot easily spring up! ”
* The late King Eyamba made this remark to the late Dr. Lawton in 1850,
who told it to Mr. W. H. Ashmall, a Liverpool merchant who has resided
for eighteen years on the.West Coast of Africa, and to whom I am indebted
for his approval of the chief facts contained in this paper.
�ON THE NEGRO’S PLACE IN NATURE.
57
Would it not be well to allow a regular export of the surplus
population, instead of permitting, and indeed encouraging the
butcheries of the so called King of Dahomey ? The difficulties
of humanising, much less of civilising, the Negro in his own
country are very great; yet, if such healthy sentiments were
generally diffused in this country as have been lately published
in an admirable work, entitled Wanderings in West Africa, it
is impossible to say what great results might in time be at
tained. This author well says, “ Ever remember, that by far
the greater number of the liberated were the vilest of criminals
in their own lands, and that in their case exportation becomes,
in fact, the African form of transportation.”*
There is abundant evidence to show that the Negro will not
work without a considerable amount of persuasion. Even Dr.
R. Clarkef is obliged to admit that the Creoles of Sierra Leone
“ manifest the utmost contempt for agricultural pursuits, and
the same feeling seems to actuate the half educated libe
rated African lads.” Another writer observes J that “ In
Sierra Leone the Christian tenderness of the British Govern
ment has tended to demoralise them............... The women have
become as vicious as those of Egypt, the basest of kingdoms
—worse than the men, bad as they are................Theft is carried
to such an extent, that no improvement is possible at Freetown.”
* Wanderings in West Africa, vol. i, p. 220.
t Sierra Leone. By Robert Clarke, p. 38.
Dr. R. Clarke speaking of the Africans of Sierra Leone, says (Transac
tions of the Ethnological Society, vol. ii, new series, p. 331)—“ Servants con
sider it no crime to rob the white man, and so long as they are undetected
they do not lose caste among their equals, although the latter may be aware
of their thefts. . . . They appear to hold agricultural pursuits in contempt,
preferring to obtain situations in the government offices and merchants’
stores; while the young women seek employment as sempstresses, etc.,
seldom entering service as domestics. . . . Comparatively few of the female
creoles are married, and in a colony where the marriage ceremony is held in
but little esteem, and generally dispensed with, young girls live as concubines,
or “sweethearts,” as they phrase it (p. 332). The civilised blacks spare no
expense in obtaining the best and newest style of European dress; and this
love of finery too often becomes quite a passion amongst the young people,
its inordinate indulgence occasionally leading to pilfering and other dishonest acts (p. 326). The Africans are very litigious, and constantly sun,moning each other on the most trivial occasions (p. 330). In one instance
(of children born with supernumerary fingers) which came to my knowledge,
the infant was on this account, soon after its birth, burnt alive; and, in
another case, the child was destroyed by twisting its neck, when it was
buried in a dung heap” (p. 333).
J Wanderings in West Africa, p. 267.
�58
ON THE NEGROES PLACE IN NATURE.
I have stated that one of the results of my inquiry leads
me to believe that English institutions are not suited to the
Negro race. There seems to be a maximum testimony to
show that the liberated and the creoles in our colonies are
a perfectly worthless set. They accept all the vices of our
civilisation with none of its duties. A recent public writer in
behalf of the English colonies on the west coast of Africa well
says :—“ The African is far more innocent and natural a crea
ture when he has never been brought within the range of
civilised life. The liberated Africans are far superior to the
rising generation—in energy, in talent, and in honest prin
ciples. To handle a hoe has now become a disgrace, and the
people have lost their manhood by becoming gentlemen . . .
only the ignorant can boast of the extensive freedom we have
given the African. Freedom indeed we should have given, but
it ought to have been qualified to suit their capacities?"’ *
In now bringing my remarks to a close, I cannot, perhaps,
do better than quote the graphic picture of the present state of
Africa, which has been only published during the last few
weeks. There is much true science and healthy manhood in
these sentiments. The work of which I speak is evidently the
work of a man who has devoted much attention to the study
of the great science of mankind; and I am pleased to find
that my own views find ample support in the conclusions of
this accomplished and scientific observer. Speaking of the
Negroes of Bonny, he says :f “The slaves wore a truly miser
able appearance, lean and deformed, with Krakra lepra and
fearful ulcerations. It is in these places that one begins to feel
a doubt touching the total suppression of slavery. The chiefs
openly beg that the rules may be relaxed, in order that they
may get rid of their criminals. This is at present impossible,
and the effects are a reduplication of misery; we pamper our
convicts, Africans torture them to death. Cheapness of the
human article is another cause of immense misery to it. In
some rivers a canoe crew never lasts three years. Pilfering—•
* The editor of the Sierra Leone Weekly Times, July 30, 1862, quoted in
Wanderings in West Africa, vol. i, p. 221.
t Wanderings in West Africa, vol. ii, p. 280.
�ON THE NEGRO’S PLACE IN NATURE.
59
‘ Show me a black man and I will show you a thief/ say the
traders—and debauchery are natural to the slave, and they
must be repressed by abominable cruelties. The master thinks
nothing of nailing their hands to a water-cask, of mutilating
them in various ways; many lose their eyes by being peppered,
after the East Indian fashion, with coarsely-powdered cayenne,
their ears are cut off, or they are flogged. The whip is com
posed of a twisted bullock’s or hippopotamus’s hide, sun dried,
with a sharp edge at the turns, and often wrapped with copper
wire; it is less merciful even than the knout, now historical.
The operation may be prolonged for hours, or for a whole day,
the culprit’s arms being tied to a rafter, which keeps them at
full stretch, and every fifteen minutes or so, a whack that cuts
away the flesh like a knife, is administered. This is a favourite
treatment for guilty wives, who are also ripped up, cut to
pieces, or thrown to the sharks. If a woman has twins, or
becomes mother of more than four, the parent is banished, and
the children are destroyed. The greatest insult is to point at
a man with arm and two fingers extended, saying at the same,
Kama shubra, i. e., one of twins, or a son of some lower animal.
When a great man dies, all kinds of barbarities are com
mitted ; slaves are buried, or floated down the river bound to
bamboo sticks and mats, till eaten piecemeal by sharks. The
slave, as might be expected, is not less brutal than his lord.
It amazes me to hear Englishmen plead that there is moral
degradation to a Negro bought by a white man, and none when
serving under a black man. The philanthropists, doubtless,
think how our poorer classes at home, in the nineteenth cen
tury, would feel if hurried from liberty to eternal servitude by
some nefarious African. But can any civilised sentiments
belong to the miserable half-starved being, whose one scanty
meal of vegetable per day is eked out with monkey and snake,
cat and dog, maggot and grub ; whose life is ceaseless toil,
varied only by torture, and who may be destroyed at any
moment by a nod from his owner ? When the slave once sur
mounted his dread of being shipped by the white man, nothing
under the sun would, I believe, induce him willingly to return
to what he should call his home. And, as they were, our West
�60
ON THE NEGROES PLACE IN NATURE.
Indian colonies were lands of happiness compared with Oil
Rivers ; as for the ‘ Southern States/ the slave's lot is para
dise when succeeding what he endures on the West Coast of
Africa. I believe these to be facts, but tant pis pour les faits.
Presently, however, the philanthropic theory shall fall, and
shall be replaced by a new fabric built upon a more solid
foundation."
Finally let me observe, that it is not alone the man of
science who has discerned the Negro's unfitness for civilisation
as we understand it. Here is the opinion of Mr. Anthony
*
Trollope, who is certainly quite guiltless of ever having exa
mined the evidence on the distinction of the Negro and Euro
pean, and yet truly says of the Negroes :—“ Give them their
liberty, starting them well in the world at what expense you
please, and at the end of six months they will come back upon
your hands for the means of support. Everything must be
done for them ; they expect food, clothes, and instruction as to
every simple act of life, as do children."
We must for the present leave alone all questions as to the
origin of the Negro, and simply take him as he exists, and not
as poets or fanatics paint him. We shall then learn, that it is
only by observation and experiment that we can determine the
exact place in nature which the Negro race should hold, and
that it is both absurd and chimerical to attempt to put him in
any other.j* North America, vol. ii, p. 85. 3rd Edition. 1862.
t We believe the following opinion of Mr. George M‘Henry can be con
firmed by all who have narrowly watched the position of “ Free” Negroes in
the Federal States. He says that “he has resided nearly all his life in
Pennsylvania, where exists the largest community of free Negroes in the
world, and he can testify to the gradual decay in their health and morals as
slavery disappeared from the neighbourhood. Neither the laws of the land,
nor public societies for his benefit, prevent the African from degenerating;
nothing but the controlling influence of a master will keep him from sinking
to that barbarous condition which is his natural state,”—The Cotton Trade
Considered in Connection with Negro Slavery in the Confederate States, 1863,
p. 259. Many other interesting and important facts, showing the superiority
of the “ Slave” over the “ Free” (?) Negro, will be found in this valuable
work.
T. RICHARDS, 37, GREAT QUEEN STEEET.
�
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
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Victorian Blogging
Description
An account of the resource
A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
Creator
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Conway Hall Library & Archives
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2018
Publisher
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Conway Hall Ethical Society
Text
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text.
Original Format
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Pamphlet
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
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On the negro's place in nature
Creator
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Hunt, James
Description
An account of the resource
Place of publication: London
Collation: viii, 60 p. ; 21 cm.
Notes: From the library of Moncure Conway. Pencilled inscription on title page: 'Handed over to me by T.H.H. M.D.C.' In ink on title page: 'T.H. Huxley Esq. With the best respect of the author.' Marginal annotations in ink, some partially cut from page. Read before the Anthropological Society of London, Nov. 17th, 1863. "His paper on 'The Negro's Place in Nature', first read at the British Association meeting at Newcastle,1863, attracted much attention, as it defended the subjection and even slavery of the negro, and supported belief in the plurality of human species". [Extracted from DND entry]. Includes bibliographical references. Printed by T. Richards, 37 Great Queen Street.
Please note that this pamphlet contains language and ideas that may be upsetting to readers. These reflect the time in which the pamphlet was written and the ideologies of the author.
Publisher
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Trubner and Co.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1863
Identifier
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G5195
Subject
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Ethnology
Slavery
Rights
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<a href="http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/"><img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" alt="Public Domain Mark" /></a><span> </span><br /><span>This work (On the negro's place in nature), identified by </span><a href="https://conwayhallcollections.omeka.net/items/show/www.conwayhall.org.uk"><span>Humanist Library and Archives</span></a><span>, is free of known copyright restrictions.</span>
Format
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application/pdf
Type
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Text
Language
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English
African Peoples
Anthropology
Ethnology
Race
Racism
Slavery