History of racialism

The white race [1] in its different branches lies spread over the broadest area. It has covered, not only Europe and the northern part of Africa, including the valley of the Nile and all the region north of the Atlas, but also Ara- bia, Persia, and a part of India. It has encroached upon Tartary, and has extended as far as the arctic circle in Europe. At a later period it has established itself beyond the oceans, in the New World, at the Cape of Good Hope, in the Easl Indies, in the Sunda Islands, in New Holland, in the islands of the Pacific Ocean, and upon the southern and eastern borders of the continent of Asia. But within this range the different nations which have succeeded each other in the course of time, even where they have assumed new peculiarities in consequence of their mixture in these new homes, have never differed more than the various families of the other races differ within their respective limits. The Arabs and Per-sians, the Berbers [Amazigh] and Jews, the Germans and Greeks, the Italians and French, the Spaniards and Portuguese, the Swedes and Normans, the Dutch and Danes, the Russians and Turks, the Anglo-Saxons and Irish, and their descendants in the Transatlantic colonies, have presented at all times the same physical characteristics, and have resembled each other within the same limits within which we find the different tribes of negroes to resemble each other. The differences between the Sene- gal negro and the negro of Mozambique, or between the negro of Congo and the negro of Caffraria, are as great, and perhaps even greater, than the differences existing between the different nations of the white race.

Let us, however, now return more specially to the geo- graphical distribution of the human races, and begin with Asia. There, within the arctic district, we have the race of Samoyedes [2.1], who are small, short men, with a round, broad face, and thick lips, but whose eyes, or rather the openings of their orbits, are narrow, though neither oblique nor very elongated, as is the case among the Chinese. A very similar type, that of the Laplanders [2.2], occurs in Northern Europe. The Esquimaux [2.3] on this con- tinent present the same general features. But if we go farther south, as far as Japan, for instance, we have an- other race in which the features already present marked differences, a race almost intermediate between the Chi- nese and the inhabitants of Kamtschatka. The Chinese fchemselvea have those very prominent cheeks, that pale- yellowish color, and those very oblique, narrow fis- sures of the eyes, which are so characteristic of that race of men generally known under the name of the Mongo- lian type [3]. But it is very important to take into consid- eration, that northwards, between the Mongolian and the arctic nations, we have intermediate types, in South- eastern Siberia. Again, if we pass from China into Indo- China and the Sunda Islands, or from the high plateaus of Asia into the Malayan peninsula, we meet another race, the Malays [4], who have some resemblance to the Chinese in their color, but differ from them in many respects, especially in the regularity of their face, and what we may call their beautiful Caucasian features. Towards the primitive seat of the white race, the Mongo- lians assume another appearance ; they resemble some- what the Caucasian type. But towards Indo-China we have also a transition from the Malayan type into the Caucasian, as we have from the Mongolian type into the Caucasian farther North.

All over Africa we have but one type [5], or rather we gen- erally consider the Africans as one, because they are chiefly black. But if we take the trouble to compare their different tribes, we shall observe that there are as great differences between them as between the inhabitants of Asia. The negro of Senegal [5.1] differs as much from the ne- gro of Mozambique [5.2] as he differs from the negro of Congo or of [Equatorial] Guinea [5.3]. The writer has of late devoted spe- cial attention to this subject, and has examined closely many native Africans belonging to different tribes, and has learned readily to distinguish their nations, without being told whence they came; and even when they at- tempted to deceive him, he could determine their origin from their physical features.

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The circumstance, that, wherever we find a human race naturally circumscribed, it is connected in its limitation with what we call, in natural history, a zoological and botanical province, — that is to say, with the natural limitation of a particular association of animals and plants, — shows most unequivocally the intimate relation existing between mankind and the animal kingdom in their adaptation to the physical world. The arctic race of men [2], covering the treeless region near the Arctics in Europe, Asia, and America, is circumscribed in the three continents within limits very similar to those occupied by that particular combination of animals which are peculiar to the same tracts of land and sea. The region inhabited by the Mongolian race [3] is also a natural zoological province, covered by a combination of animals naturally circumscribed within the same regions. The Malay race [4] covers also a natural zoological province. New Holland [6], again, constitutes a very peculiar zoological province, in which we have another particular race of men. And it is furl her remarkable, in this connection, that the plants and animals now living on the continent of Africa, south of the Atlas, within the same range within which the negroes are naturally circumscribed, have a character differing widely from that of the plants and animals of the northern shores of Africa and the valley of Egypt; while the Cape of Good Hope [7], within the limits inhabited by Hottentots, is characterized by a vegetation and a fauna equally peculiar, and differing in its features from that over which the African race is spread.

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Again, on the continent of America, have we not in the Indians evidence of another mode of existence, indications of other dispositions, of other feelings, of other appreciations of the advantages of life. The character of the Indian race [8] has been so well sketched out by Dr. Morton, in his able works upon that subject, that we need not repeat what he has said. We would only ask, Does not that Indian race present the most striking contrast with the character of the negro race, or with the character of the Mongolian, especially the Chinese and Japanese? The indomitable, courageous, proud Indian, — in how very different a light he stands by the side of the submissive, obsequious, imitative negro, or by the side of the tricky, cunning, and cowardly Mongolian ! Are not these facts indications that the different races do not rank upon one level in nature, — that the different tendencies which characterize man in his highest development are permanently brought out in various combinations, isolated in each of these races, in a manner similar to all the developments in physical nature, and, we may also say, similar to all the developments in the intellectual and moral world, where in the early stages of development we see some one side predominant, which in the highest degree of perfection is combined with all others, in wonderful harmony, even though the lower stages belong to the same sphere as the highest? So can we conceive, and so it seems to us to be indeed the fact, that those higher attributes which characterize man in his highest development are exhibited in the several races in very different proportions, giving, in the case of the inferior races, prominence to features which are more harmoniously combined in the white race, thus preserving the unity among them all, though the difference is made more prominent by the manner in which the different faculties are developed.