Historical Justification for Racism
Racial Superiority Theories Leaned on Science and Religion
Oct 21, 2009
As explorers from Europe ventured out into the world they came across peoples who looked different, had different customs, and, it was decided by the Europeans, were quite backward when compared with their advanced civilizations. There must be an explanation for this. The search was on.
Racism Justified to Excuse Colonial Exploitation
According to the British historian Basil Davidson, racism is a relatively new phenomenon and only surfaced because it could be used as a justification for slavery in the Americas. By classifying Africans as sub-human, slave traders and owners could get around the Christian belief that all men are created equal. This was also a way of dodging the creationist idea that all humans are descended from common ancestors.
This loophole in Christian theory had been found by Juan Gines de Sepulveda. During the Valladolid Debate of 1550-51, the Spanish theologian said that conquering and enslaving Indians in the Americas had the blessing of the church. The Indians, Sepulveda decided, did not have souls and this made them “natural slaves.”
Scientific Search for Justification for Racism
Others looked for evidence that racism had a sound footing in science. They found their “proof” in the theory of eugenics. Sir Francis Galton started things off in 1869. He was inspired by the 1859 book On the Origin of Species that had been written by his cousin, Charles Darwin a decade earlier.
Sir Francis did some pioneering work by studying how intelligence, among other things, seemed to run in families. He decided that intelligence and other traits are inherited.
Galton had seen how farmers and others had learned how to rear better cows and horses through selective breeding. Why not apply the techniques to humans? “It would be quite practicable,” he wrote in his book Hereditary Genius, “to produce a highly-gifted race of men by judicious marriages during several consecutive generations.”
The Birth of Eugenics
Of course, it followed that if good qualities could be made better the reverse was also true; stupidity and other negative characteristics could also be inherited. Galton went so far as to call for human breeding restrictions to eliminate the “feeble-minded” from humanity.
Sir Francis Galton carried out field studies in Africa. From these he decided that Africans were “two grades” below Anglo-Saxons in general mental ability. Of course, those who already believed in the superiority of certain races snapped up Sir Francis’s idea with glee.
Here was the “scientific proof” they needed to justify the mistreatment of “inferior” races. They have since used eugenics as a defence of such actions as the segregation of races, forced sterilization, and even genocide.
Racism was a Widely Accepted Attitude
Many famous scientists and philosophers of the 18th and 19th centuries – David Hume, Immanuel Kant, Charles Darwin – made comments that today would have them hauled before human rights commissions to explain themselves.
They all bought into the belief that whites were a superior race to Blacks. In the 19th century, the German philosopher Georg Hegel declared that Blacks had no “sense of personality; their spirit sleeps.”
Sadly, there are some otherwise intelligent people, as well as many less well endowed intellectually, who still believe such statements to be true.
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