The idea of race was formally introduced to Europe by an adventurer and traveler named Francois Bernier (1625-1688.) In 1684, after traveling around the world, he published a work called A New Division of the Earth. In it he proposed that humanity could be divided into “four or five species or races of men in particular whose difference is so remarkable that it may be properly made use of as the foundation for a new division of the earth.” Thus began white racism.
Bernier’s division was based on looks and geography. He listed race according to specific countries, going so far as to separate out specific areas within countries for one race or another. This question of the division of humanity into races was controversial, not because it was arbitrary and bigoted (which it was,) but rather because it raised the question of whether all of humanity was a single race descended from Eve (called monogenesis,) or whether the different races were actually different species (polygenesis.)
This was a time of change in Europe as previously unquestioned beliefs about the world were challenged by science. In particular, the new field of paleontology (the study of fossils) played a large role in the growing belief in some form of evolution. The theory of evolution was solidified by Charles Darwin who showed how all humans could be traced back to a common ancestor. While there remained a few stubborn hold-outs, Darwin refuted the idea of polygenesis. But the idea of race as a way of categorizing people remained. One of the reasons for this was a need to justify slavery.
Slavery has existed as long as human civilizations have existed. However, slavery in earlier times was usually situational. By that I mean that people were conquered or kidnapped and forced to work for their captors. People were sometimes legally enslaved as a punishment, or because of debt. In some cultures children of enslaved mothers were born into bondage. Differences in religion or language were often viewed with suspicion and sometimes slavery was allowed for one group and not another. People were bought and sold. These forms of slavery were often brutal and the enslaved were often dehumanized.
Something shifted, however, with colonization and the international slave trade. Suddenly slavery was big business. Big, international business. As colonization divided Africa between European states African people became a commodity. Not only did this reduce resistance to European conquerors, but enslaved Africans provided labor for the growing plantations. It’s one thing to say we captured your village and now you have to work for us and a whole different thing to say you are now a cog in a business enterprise. That requires a different level of dehumanization.
Here the idea of race comes in handy. If you can group people into specific categories it becomes easier to form nice neat hierarchies. Now it becomes possible to say “my race is better than yours.” As science gained traction it was used to justify the hierarchy among races. In 1775 Johann Friedrich Blumenbach used skull size to “prove” that whites were superior to all others. (It wasn’t until the late 1800’s-early 1900’s that Franz Boas challenged this by showing that nutrition was actually the cause of the variation. He showed how children of immigrants had skulls similar to their country of birth – as did their parents.)
In the 19th and 20th Centuries people used pseudoscience to justify eugenics, the idea that by breeding together the “right” types of people you could create a superior human. In the US this was used to create a hierarchy among immigrants of different races. Among the many problems with their “science” was the use of undefined and subjective terms such as “feeble-minded,” “degenerate” and “criminal type.” Researchers applied these terms to their “subjects” based on their own determination rather than any set measures. If they felt someone was feeble-minded that was the label given to that person. This of course reinforced the biases of the eugenicists as they set out to determine who was the smartest, strongest and most desirable type of person.
They discovered, surprise, surprise, that people just like them were the superior human race. The eugenics movement lost favor after Nazi Germany took it to the extreme, although the idea of race still remains entrenched in our society. Now though, it’s less certain what is meant by race.
Modern science has studied race using DNA and found that, overall people are more similar than different. There are certainly genetic differences between people and also between groups of people. But divvying people up into specific groups is harder. People move around and cultures mingle. That means that you can’t say this area is defined this way, because it will depend on the era. At one point in time that area may have been dominated by group A, while a few centuries later group B migrated from area C and the people are now genetically ABC people. We all originated in Africa. After that it gets messy.
Then there is the problem that this does not say anything about race. It is necessary to first define what is meant by race. Clearly race exists and plays a big role in our society, but it is a cultural construct. Just as being Canadian, or a Vermonter is “real,” so race is real. However, it is a socially defined label, not a scientific division. And certainly not a reason for discrimination.
We can only hope that the Black Lives Matter movement continues the slowly growing cultural perception that race does not describe a hierarchy. It does not describe a scientific division among people. Race exists. We shouldn’t strive for sameness, but rather for equal enthusiasm for the rights of all races. That will require us white folk to give up on the idea of racial superiority which is so ingrained into our culture as to be invisible. Until we look hard at the history of the white race it will be impossible to see ourselves as one race among many – however society decides to define it.
Stay well, be curious, learn things.
Kate
June 2020
Note:
François Bernier, “A New Division of the Earth” From Journal des Scavans, April 24, 1684. Translated by T Bendyshe in Memoirs Read Before the Anthropological Society of London, vol. 1, 1863-64, pp.360-64.
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