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Polygenism is a theory of human origins which posits the view that the human races are of different origins (''polygenesis''). This view is opposite to the idea of
monogenism Monogenism or sometimes monogenesis is the theory of human origins which posits a common descent for all human races. The negation of monogenism is polygenism. This issue was hotly debated in the Western world in the nineteenth century, as the ...
, which posits a single origin of humanity. Modern scientific views no longer favor the polygenic model, with the monogenic "Out of Africa" hypothesis and its variants being the most widely accepted models for human origins. Historically, polygenism has been used to advance
racial inequality Social inequality occurs when resources in a given society are distributed unevenly, typically through norms of allocation, that engender specific patterns along lines of socially defined categories of persons. It posses and creates gender c ...
.


Origins

Many
oral tradition Oral tradition, or oral lore, is a form of human communication wherein knowledge, art, ideas and cultural material is received, preserved, and transmitted orally from one generation to another. Vansina, Jan: ''Oral Tradition as History'' (198 ...
s feature polygenesis in their creation stories. For example, Bambuti mythology and other creation stories from the
pygmies In anthropology, pygmy peoples are ethnic groups whose average height is unusually short. The term pygmyism is used to describe the phenotype of endemic short stature (as opposed to disproportionate dwarfism occurring in isolated cases in a po ...
of Congo state that the supreme God of the pygmies, Khonvoum, created three different races of humans separately out of three kinds of clay: one black, one white, and one red. In some cultures, polygenism in the creation narrative served an etiological function. These narratives provided an explanation as to why other people groups exist who are not affiliated with their tribe. Moreover, distinctions made between the creation of foreign people groups and the tribe or ethnic group to which the creation myth pertains served to reinforce tribal or ethnic unity, the need to exercise wariness and caution when dealing with outsiders, or the unique nature of the relationship between that tribe and the deities of their religious system. An example may be found in the creation myth of the Asmat people, a
hunter-gatherer A traditional hunter-gatherer or forager is a human living an ancestrally derived lifestyle in which most or all food is obtained by foraging, that is, by gathering food from local sources, especially edible wild plants but also insects, fungi ...
tribe situated along the south-western coast of
New Guinea New Guinea (; Hiri Motu: ''Niu Gini''; id, Papua, or , historically ) is the List of islands by area, world's second-largest island with an area of . Located in Oceania in the southwestern Pacific Ocean, the island is separated from Mainlan ...
. This creation myth asserts that the Asmat themselves came into being when a deity placed carved wooden statues in a ceremonial house and began to beat a drum. The statues became living humans and began to dance. Some time later, a great crocodile attempted to attack this ceremonial house, but was defeated by the power of the deity. The crocodile was cut into several pieces and these were tossed in different directions. Each piece became one of the foreign tribes known to the Asmat. The idea is also found in some ancient Greek and Roman literature. For example, the Roman Emperor
Julian the Apostate Julian ( la, Flavius Claudius Julianus; grc-gre, Ἰουλιανός ; 331 – 26 June 363) was Roman emperor from 361 to 363, as well as a notable philosopher and author in Greek. His rejection of Christianity, and his promotion of Neoplaton ...
in his ''Letter to a Priest'' wrote that he believed
Zeus Zeus or , , ; grc, Δῐός, ''Diós'', label= genitive Boeotian Aeolic and Laconian grc-dor, Δεύς, Deús ; grc, Δέος, ''Déos'', label= genitive el, Δίας, ''Días'' () is the sky and thunder god in ancient Greek relig ...
made multiple creations of man and women. In his ''Against the Galilaens'' Julian presented his reasoning for this belief. Julian had noticed that the Germanics and
Scythians The Scythians or Scyths, and sometimes also referred to as the Classical Scythians and the Pontic Scythians, were an ancient Eastern * : "In modern scholarship the name 'Sakas' is reserved for the ancient tribes of northern and eastern Cent ...
(northern nations) were different in their bodies (i.e. complexion and other traits) to the
Ethiopians Ethiopians are the native inhabitants of Ethiopia, as well as the global diaspora of Ethiopia. Ethiopians constitute several component ethnic groups, many of which are closely related to ethnic groups in neighboring Eritrea and other parts of ...
. He therefore could not imagine such difference in physical attributes as having originated from common ancestry, and so maintained separate creations for different races. In early classical and medieval geography the idea of polygenism surfaced because of the suggested possibility of there being inhabitants of the
antipodes In geography, the antipode () of any spot on Earth is the point on Earth's surface diametrically opposite to it. A pair of points ''antipodal'' () to each other are situated such that a straight line connecting the two would pass through ...
( Antichthones). These inhabitants were considered by some to have separate origins because of their geographical extremity. The
religion Religion is usually defined as a social-cultural system of designated behaviors and practices, morals, beliefs, worldviews, texts, sanctified places, prophecies, ethics, or organizations, that generally relates humanity to supernatural, ...
of the
Ainu people The Ainu are the indigenous people of the lands surrounding the Sea of Okhotsk, including Hokkaido Island, Northeast Honshu Island, Sakhalin Island, the Kuril Islands, the Kamchatka Peninsula and Khabarovsk Krai, before the arrival of the Yam ...
claims that the ancestors of the Ainu people arrived on Earth from the skies separate from the other races. See Ainu creation myth.


Main beliefs

Traditionally, most Jews, Christians and Muslims have embraced
monogenism Monogenism or sometimes monogenesis is the theory of human origins which posits a common descent for all human races. The negation of monogenism is polygenism. This issue was hotly debated in the Western world in the nineteenth century, as the ...
in the form that all modern humans ultimately are descended from a single mating pair, named
Adam and Eve Adam and Eve, according to the creation myth of the Abrahamic religions, were the first man and woman. They are central to the belief that humanity is in essence a single family, with everyone descended from a single pair of original ancestors. ...
. In this context, polygenism described all alternative explanations for the origin of humankind that involved more than two individual "first people". This definition of polygenism is still employed among some Creationists and within the Roman Catholic Church (see ''
Humani generis ''Humani generis'' is a papal encyclical that Pope Pius XII promulgated on 12 August 1950 "concerning some false opinions threatening to undermine the foundations of Catholic Doctrine". Theological opinions and doctrines known as '' Nouvelle Théo ...
''). With the development of the evolutionary paradigm of human origins, it has become widely recognized within the scientific community that at no point did there exist a single "first man" and a single "first woman" who constituted the first true humans and to whom all lineages of modern humans ultimately converge. If Adam and Eve ever existed as distinct historical persons, they were members of a much larger population of the same species. However, a common scientific explanation of human origins asserts that the population directly ancestral to all modern humans remained united as a single population by constant gene flow. Therefore, on the level of the entire human population, this explanation of human origin is classified as monogenism. All modern humans share the same origin from this single ancestral population. Modern polygenists do not accept either theological or scientific monogenism. They believe that the variation among human racial types cannot be accounted for by monogenism or by evolutionary processes occurring since the proposed
recent African origin of modern humans In paleoanthropology, the recent African origin of modern humans, also called the "Out of Africa" theory (OOA), recent single-origin hypothesis (RSOH), replacement hypothesis, or recent African origin model (RAO), is the dominant model of the ...
. Polygenists reject the argument that human races must belong to a single species because they can interbreed. There are several polygenist hypotheses, including biblical creationist polygenism and polygenist evolution.


The Bible

To make polygenism compatible with the Biblical account in the early chapters of the ''
Book of Genesis The Book of Genesis (from Greek ; Hebrew: בְּרֵאשִׁית ''Bəreʾšīt'', "In hebeginning") is the first book of the Hebrew Bible and the Christian Old Testament. Its Hebrew name is the same as its first word, ( "In the beginning") ...
'', some argument is needed to the effect that what is in the Bible is incomplete. Three standard positions are: *
Pre-Adamism The pre-Adamite hypothesis or pre-Adamism is the theological belief that humans (or intelligent yet non-human creatures) existed before the biblical character Adam. Pre-Adamism is therefore distinct from the conventional Abrahamic belief that Ada ...
; *Co-Adamism; *incompleteness of the '' Table of Nations'' in Genesis 10. In Christian terms, polygenesis remained an uncommon
Biblical interpretation Biblical hermeneutics is the study of the principles of interpretation concerning the books of the Bible. It is part of the broader field of hermeneutics, which involves the study of principles of interpretation, both theory and methodology, for ...
until the mid-19th century, and was largely considered
heretical Heresy is any belief or theory that is strongly at variance with established beliefs or customs, in particular the accepted beliefs of a church or religious organization. The term is usually used in reference to violations of important relig ...
; however, it has been pointed out by some modern scholars that, while Pre-Adamism was strongly rejected by most and deemed heretical, Co-Adamism was not received with the same degree of hostility. A major reason for the emergence of Biblical polygenism from around the 18th century was because it became noted that the number of races could not have developed within the commonly-accepted Biblical timeframe. Francis Dobbs (1750–1811), an eccentric member of the Irish Parliament, believed in a different kind of biblical polygenism. In his ''Concise View from History'' written in 1800 he maintained that there was a race resulting from a clandestine affair between Eve and the Devil (see
Serpent Seed The doctrine of the serpent seed, also known as the dual-seed or the two-seedline doctrine, is a controversial and fringe Christian religious belief which explains the biblical account of the fall of man by stating that the Serpent mated with E ...
). Polygenism was heavily criticized in the early 20th century by the
Roman Catholic Church The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...
, and especially by Pope Pius XII in the encyclical ''
Humani generis ''Humani generis'' is a papal encyclical that Pope Pius XII promulgated on 12 August 1950 "concerning some false opinions threatening to undermine the foundations of Catholic Doctrine". Theological opinions and doctrines known as '' Nouvelle Théo ...
'' (1950), on the grounds that polygenism is incompatible with the doctrine of
Original Sin Original sin is the Christian doctrine that holds that humans, through the fact of birth, inherit a tainted nature in need of regeneration and a proclivity to sinful conduct. The biblical basis for the belief is generally found in Genesis 3 (t ...
.


Pre-Adamism

Pre-Adamism claims there were already races of humans living before the creation of Adam. It traces back to Isaac La Peyrère in the 17th century.


Co-Adamism

Co-Adamism claims that there was more than one Adam – small groups of men, created at the same time in different places across the Earth – and therefore that the different races were separately created. The idea of co-Adamism has been traced back as far as Paracelsus in 1520. Other 16th century advocates of co-Adamism included
Thomas Harriot Thomas Harriot (; – 2 July 1621), also spelled Harriott, Hariot or Heriot, was an English astronomer, mathematician, ethnographer and translator to whom the theory of refraction is attributed. Thomas Harriot was also recognized for his con ...
and Walter Raleigh, who theorised a different origin for the Native Americans. In 1591
Giordano Bruno Giordano Bruno (; ; la, Iordanus Brunus Nolanus; born Filippo Bruno, January or February 1548 – 17 February 1600) was an Italian philosopher, mathematician, poet, cosmological theorist, and Hermetic occultist. He is known for his cosmolog ...
argued that because no one could imagine that the Jews and the Ethiopians had the same ancestry, then God must have either created separate Adams or Africans were the descendants of
pre-Adamite The pre-Adamite hypothesis or pre-Adamism is the theological belief that humans (or intelligent yet non-human creatures) existed before the biblical character Adam. Pre-Adamism is therefore distinct from the conventional Abrahamic belief that Ada ...
races. An anonymous Biblical paper supporting co-Adamism was published in 1732 entitled ''Co-adamitae or an Essay to Prove the Two Following. Paradoxes, viz. I. That There Were Other Men Created at the Same time with Adam, and II. That the Angels did not fall''.
Henry Home, Lord Kames Henry Home, Lord Kames (169627 December 1782) was a Scottish writer, philosopher, advocate, judge, and agricultural improver. A central figure of the Scottish Enlightenment, a founding member of the Philosophical Society of Edinburgh, and ac ...
was a believer in co-Adamism. Home believed God had created different races on Earth in separate regions. In his book ''Sketches on the History of Man'' in 1734 Home claimed that the environment, climate, or state of society could not account for racial differences, so that the races must have come from distinct, separate stocks. Charles White was another advocate of co-Adamism, although he used less theology to support his views. White's ''Account of the Regular Gradation in Man'' in 1799, provided the empirical science for polygenism. White defended the theory of polygeny by refuting French naturalist
Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon (; 7 September 1707 – 16 April 1788) was a French naturalist, mathematician, cosmologist, and encyclopédiste. His works influenced the next two generations of naturalists, including two prominent ...
's interfertility argument the theory that only the same species can interbreed – pointing to species hybrids such as foxes, wolves and jackals, which were separate groups that were still able to interbreed.
Charles Hamilton Smith Lieutenant-Colonel Charles Hamilton Smith, KH, KW, FRS, FLS, (26 December 1776 in East Flanders, in the United Provinces of the Netherlands – 21 September 1859 in Plymouth) was an English artist, naturalist, antiquary, illustrator, sold ...
, a naturalist from England, was a polygenist: he believed races had been created separately. He published the book ''The Natural History of the Human Species'' in 1848. In the book he maintained that there had always been three fundamentally distinct human types: the Caucasian, the Mongolian and the Negro. He also referred to the polygenist
Samuel George Morton Samuel George Morton (January 26, 1799 – May 15, 1851) was an American physician, natural scientist, and writer who argued against the single creation story of the Bible, monogenism, instead supporting a theory of multiple racial creations, pol ...
's work in America. Samuel Kneeland wrote an 84-page introduction to the American edition of the book where he laid out evidence which supports polygenist creationism and that the Bible is entirely compatible with multiple Adams.
John William Colenso John William Colenso (24 January 1814 – 20 June 1883) was a Cornish cleric and mathematician, defender of the Zulu and biblical scholar, who served as the first Bishop of Natal. He was a scholar of the Zulu language. In his role as an Angli ...
, a theologian and biblical scholar, was a polygenist who believed in co-Adamism. Colenso pointed to monuments and artifacts in Egypt to debunk monogenist beliefs that all races came from the same stock. For example, Ancient Egyptian representations of races showed exactly how the races looked in his time. Egyptological evidence indicated the existence of remarkable permanent differences in the shape of the skull, bodily form, colour and physiognomy between different races which are difficult to reconcile with biblical monogenesis. Colenso believed that racial variation between races was so great, that there was no way in which all the races could have come from the same stock just a few thousand years ago. He was unconvinced that climate could change racial variation and also believed, in common with other biblical polygenists, that monogenists had interpreted the Bible wrongly.Colin Kidd, The forging of races: race and scripture in the Protestant Atlantic world, 1600 - 2000, 2006, pp. 153-156 Colenso said: "It seems most probable that the human race, as it now exists, had really sprung from more than one pair". Colenso denied that polygenism caused any kind of racist attitudes or practices; like many other polygenists he claimed monogenesis was the cause of slavery and racism. Colenso claimed that each race had sprung from a different pair of parents, and that all races were created equal by God.


Criticism of the ''Table of Nations''

Biblical polygenists such as Colenso, Louis Agassiz,
Josiah Clark Nott Josiah Clark Nott (March 31, 1804March 31, 1873) was an American surgeon and anthropologist. He is known for his studies into the etiology of yellow fever and malaria, including the theory that they originate from germs. Nott, who owned slaves ...
and George Gliddon maintained that many of the races on Earth, such as Africans and Asians, were not featured in the '' Table of Nations'' in Genesis 10. Nott argued that its authors' knowledge was limited to their own region, and that the Bible does not concern the whole of the Earth's population. According to Nott, there are no verses in the Bible which support monogenism; and that the only passage the monogenists use is Acts 17:26, where (he wrote) the monogenists are wrong in their interpretation of this verse because the "one blood" of Paul's sermon only includes the nations he knew existed, which were local.


Atheist polygenism

According to Lansdown (2006), "Polygenism, the concept of different human species, was heretical and 'atheistic'; it was embraced only by the most isolated and heterodox thinkers". Atheist polygenism was most notably supported by Ephraim Squier (1821–1888). In Europe in the 19th century the general public had favored polygenism, as many believed it contradicted the Genesis account and thus was more scientific than religious monogenism. The British atheist leader
Charles Bradlaugh Charles Bradlaugh (; 26 September 1833 – 30 January 1891) was an English political activist and atheist. He founded the National Secular Society in 1866, 15 years after George Holyoake had coined the term "secularism" in 1851. In 1880, Brad ...
was also interested in the theory of polygenesis. He found it useful to undermine Genesis accounts of creation, but this did not mean he advocated racist policies.


Scientific polygenism

Scientific polygenism is a set of
hypotheses A hypothesis (plural hypotheses) is a proposed explanation for a phenomenon. For a hypothesis to be a scientific hypothesis, the scientific method requires that one can test it. Scientists generally base scientific hypotheses on previous obse ...
resulting from the use of the
scientific method The scientific method is an empirical method for acquiring knowledge that has characterized the development of science since at least the 17th century (with notable practitioners in previous centuries; see the article history of scientific me ...
to attempt explanation of the differences in traits between humans who live in different regions. Over the course of many centuries, polygenistic hypotheses have been dismissed by more accurate scientific theories. During the late 17th century and early 18th century many countries first began to encounter different races from other countries due to
colonial expansion Colonial or The Colonial may refer to: * Colonial, of, relating to, or characteristic of a colony or colony (biology) Architecture * American colonial architecture * French Colonial * Spanish Colonial architecture Automobiles * Colonial (1920 a ...
, discovery, overseas exploration and increases in
trade Trade involves the transfer of goods and services from one person or entity to another, often in exchange for money. Economists refer to a system or network that allows trade as a market. An early form of trade, barter, saw the direct exch ...
routes. Because of the encounters with different races, many people could not believe that they had the same ancestry as other races, because of the extreme racial differences. Many
explorers Exploration refers to the historical practice of discovering remote lands. It is studied by geographers and historians. Two major eras of exploration occurred in human history: one of convergence, and one of divergence. The first, covering most ...
and
scientists A scientist is a person who conducts scientific research to advance knowledge in an area of the natural sciences. In classical antiquity, there was no real ancient analog of a modern scientist. Instead, philosophers engaged in the philosophica ...
visited other countries to observe and study different races and write down their findings. Later they went back to their own countries to publish books and journals on their findings and claim that the evidence supported polygenism.


18th century

Polygenists of the 18th century included
Voltaire François-Marie Arouet (; 21 November 169430 May 1778) was a French Enlightenment writer, historian, and philosopher. Known by his '' nom de plume'' M. de Voltaire (; also ; ), he was famous for his wit, and his criticism of Christianity— ...
and
David Hume David Hume (; born David Home; 7 May 1711 NS (26 April 1711 OS) – 25 August 1776) Cranston, Maurice, and Thomas Edmund Jessop. 2020 999br>David Hume" '' Encyclopædia Britannica''. Retrieved 18 May 2020. was a Scottish Enlightenment phil ...
. Voltaire in his 1734 book ''Traité de métaphysique'' wrote that "whites ... Negroes ... the yellow races ... are not descended from the same man".
Voltaire François-Marie Arouet (; 21 November 169430 May 1778) was a French Enlightenment writer, historian, and philosopher. Known by his '' nom de plume'' M. de Voltaire (; also ; ), he was famous for his wit, and his criticism of Christianity— ...
brought the subject up in his ''Essay on the Manner and Spirit of Nations and on the Principal Occurrences in History'' in 1756 (which was an early work of comparative history). He believed each race had separate origins because they were so racially diverse. Voltaire found biblical
monogenism Monogenism or sometimes monogenesis is the theory of human origins which posits a common descent for all human races. The negation of monogenism is polygenism. This issue was hotly debated in the Western world in the nineteenth century, as the ...
laughable, as he expressed:
It is a serious question among them whether the Africans are descended from monkeys or whether the monkeys come from them. Our wise men have said that man was created in the image of God. Now here is a lovely image of the Divine Maker: a flat and black nose with little or hardly any intelligence. A time will doubtless come when these animals will know how to cultivate the land well, beautify their houses and gardens, and know the paths of the stars: one needs time for everything.
When comparing Caucasians to those with dark skin, Voltaire claimed they were different species:
The negro race is a species of men different from ours as the breed of spaniels is from that of greyhounds. The mucous membrane, or network, which nature has spread between the muscles and the skin, is white in us and black or copper-colored in them.
Historians have suggested that Voltaire's support for polygenism was shaped by his financial investments in French colonial companies, including the Compagnie des Indies. John Atkins, an English naval
surgeon In modern medicine, a surgeon is a medical professional who performs surgery. Although there are different traditions in different times and places, a modern surgeon usually is also a licensed physician or received the same medical training a ...
, was one of the earliest scientists to be a proponent of the polygenist theory. In his book ''A Voyage to Guinea'' (1723) he said "I am persuaded that the black and white race have sprung from different coloured parents." In the last two decades of the 18th century polygenism was advocated in England by historian
Edward Long Edward Long (23 August 1734 – 13 March 1813) was an English-born British colonial administrator, slave owner and historian, and author of a highly controversial work, ''The History of Jamaica'' (1774). He was a polemic defender of slavery. Li ...
and anatomist Charles White, in Germany by ethnographers
Christoph Meiners Christoph Meiners (31 July 1747 – 1 May 1810) was a German racialist, philosopher, historian, and writer born in Warstade. He supported the polygenist theory of human origins. He was a member of the Göttingen School of History. Biograp ...
and Georg Forster, and in France by
Julien-Joseph Virey Julien-Joseph Virey (21 December 1775, Langres – 9 March 1846) was a French naturalist and anthropologist. Biography Julien-Joseph Virey grew up in Hortes village in southern Haute-Marne, where he had access to a library. He educated himself ...
.


19th-century views

Polygenism was most widespread during the 19th century. The racial studies of
Georges Cuvier Jean Léopold Nicolas Frédéric, Baron Cuvier (; 23 August 1769 – 13 May 1832), known as Georges Cuvier, was a French naturalist and zoologist, sometimes referred to as the "founding father of paleontology". Cuvier was a major figure in na ...
, the French naturalist and
zoologist Zoology ()The pronunciation of zoology as is usually regarded as nonstandard, though it is not uncommon. is the branch of biology that studies the animal kingdom, including the structure, embryology, evolution, classification, habits, and d ...
, influenced scientific polygenism and
scientific racism Scientific racism, sometimes termed biological racism, is the pseudoscience, pseudoscientific belief that empirical evidence exists to support or justify racism (racial discrimination), racial inferiority, or racial superiority.. "Few tragedies ...
. These theories proposed a graduation from ‘civilisation’ to ‘barbarism’, at once justifying the European acquisition of foreign territories and highlighting the belief in the singular role of the Europeans as a civilizing force.


Georges Cuvier

Georges Cuvier Jean Léopold Nicolas Frédéric, Baron Cuvier (; 23 August 1769 – 13 May 1832), known as Georges Cuvier, was a French naturalist and zoologist, sometimes referred to as the "founding father of paleontology". Cuvier was a major figure in na ...
, a French naturalist and
zoologist Zoology ()The pronunciation of zoology as is usually regarded as nonstandard, though it is not uncommon. is the branch of biology that studies the animal kingdom, including the structure, embryology, evolution, classification, habits, and d ...
, believed there were three distinct races: the Caucasian ("white"), the Mongolian ("yellow") and the
Ethiopia Ethiopia, , om, Itiyoophiyaa, so, Itoobiya, ti, ኢትዮጵያ, Ítiyop'iya, aa, Itiyoppiya officially the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, is a landlocked country in the Horn of Africa. It shares borders with Eritrea to the Er ...
n ("black"). Cuvier claimed
Adam and Eve Adam and Eve, according to the creation myth of the Abrahamic religions, were the first man and woman. They are central to the belief that humanity is in essence a single family, with everyone descended from a single pair of original ancestors. ...
were Caucasian, forming the original race of mankind, while the other two races originated by survivors escaping in different directions after a major catastrophe hit the Earth 5,000 years ago, with those survivors then living in complete isolation from each other. Each race received marks for the beauty or ugliness of their skull and quality of their civilizations. According to Cuvier the white race was at the top and the black race was at the bottom. Cuvier wrote regarding Caucasians:
The white race, with oval face, straight hair and nose, to which the civilised people of Europe belong and which appear to us the most beautiful of all, is also superior to others by its genius, courage and activity.
Regarding those he termed "Ethiopian", Cuvier wrote:
The Negro race ... is marked by a black complexion, crisped or woolly hair, compressed cranium, and a flat nose. The projection of the lower parts of the face, and the thick lips, evidently approximate it to the monkey tribe; the hordes of which it consists have always remained in the most complete state of utter barbarism.
Cuvier's racial studies held the main features of polygenism, which are as follows: *Fixity of species *Strict limits on environmental influence *Unchanging underlying type *Anatomical and cranial measurement differences in races *Physical and mental differences between racial worth *Human races are all distinct


Prichard

Scientific polygenism became popular in France in the 1820s in response to James Cowles Prichard's ''Researches into the Physical History of Man'' (1813) which was considered a pioneering work of monogenism. An anthropological school advocating polygenism arose to counter Prichard's monogenism in France. Key French polygenists of this period included the naturalist
Jean Baptiste Bory de Saint-Vincent Jean-Baptiste Geneviève Marcellin Bory de Saint-Vincent was a French naturalist, officer and politician. He was born on 6 July 1778 in Agen (Lot-et-Garonne) and died on 22 December 1846 in Paris. Biologist and geographer, he was particularly in ...
and Louis-Antoine Desmoulins (1796–1828), a student of Georges Cuvier.


Retzius

Anders Retzius Anders Adolph Retzius (13 October 1796 – 18 April 1860), was a Swedish professor of anatomy and a supervisor at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm. Biography Retzius was born in Lund, Sweden, in 1796. He enrolled at Lund University in 1 ...
, a Swedish professor of anatomy, was a polygenist. Retzius studied many different skull types, and because the skulls were so different he believed that the races had a separate origin.


Later European trends

Polygenist schools arose in the 1830s and 1840s across Europe. The Scottish anatomist and zoologist Robert Knox spent the latter half of his career advocating for polygenism; he argued in his 1850 work ''The Races of Men'' that " cial natures ... were unchanging over thousands of years, and were so different that they should be called different species". A colleague of Knox,
James Hunt James Simon Wallis Hunt (29 August 1947 – 15 June 1993) ''Autocourse Grand Prix Archive'', 14 October 2007. Retrieved 4 November 2007. was a British racing driver who won the Formula One World Championship in . After retiring from racing in ...
, was also a promoter of polygenism. In 1863, he published an article titled ''On the Negro's Place in Nature'' which was posthumously dedicated to Knox. In the controversial article, Hunt supported both polygenism and
slavery Slavery and enslavement are both the state and the condition of being a slave—someone forbidden to quit one's service for an enslaver, and who is treated by the enslaver as property. Slavery typically involves slaves being made to perf ...
in the Confederacy.
John Crawfurd John Crawfurd (13 August 1783 – 11 May 1868) was a Scottish physician, colonial administrator, diplomat, and author who served as the second and last Resident of Singapore. Early life He was born on Islay, in Argyll, Scotland, the son of S ...
, a Scottish physician and colonial administrator, was a polygenist. He studied the geography of where different races were located, and believed that different races had been created separately by God in specific regional zones for climatic circumstance.


American views

Charles Caldwell, born in 1772 and died in 1853, was one of the earliest supporters of polygenism in America. Caldwell attacked the position that environment was the cause of racial differences and argued instead that four races, Caucasian, Mongolian, American Indian, and African, were four different species, created separately by God.
Charles Pickering (naturalist) Charles Pickering (November 10, 1805 – March 17, 1878) was an American race scientist and naturalist. Biography Born on Starucca Creek, Upper Susquehanna, Pennsylvania, the grandson of Colonel Timothy Pickering, after the death of his father ...
was a librarian and curator of the Academy of Natural Sciences. In 1843, he traveled to Africa and India to research human races. In 1848, Pickering published ''Races of Man and Their Geographical Distribution'', which enumerated eleven races. Polygenism came into mainstream scientific thought in America in the mid 19th century with the work of several corresponding natural scientists such as
Samuel George Morton Samuel George Morton (January 26, 1799 – May 15, 1851) was an American physician, natural scientist, and writer who argued against the single creation story of the Bible, monogenism, instead supporting a theory of multiple racial creations, pol ...
and Charles Pickering as well as Egyptologist George Gliddon, the surgeon
Josiah Clark Nott Josiah Clark Nott (March 31, 1804March 31, 1873) was an American surgeon and anthropologist. He is known for his studies into the etiology of yellow fever and malaria, including the theory that they originate from germs. Nott, who owned slaves ...
and more prominently the paleontologist and geologist Louis Agassiz in the
United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territo ...
. All had contributed to a major ethnological work of 738 pages entitled ''Types of Mankind'' which was published in 1854 and was a great success; it was followed by a sequel ''Indigenous Races of the Earth'' (1857). These works sparked the first formal Polygenist vs. Monogenist debates across America, and advocates of the polygenism school became known as pluralists. Since Louis Agassiz backed the pluralists, polygenism received mainstream public approval and wide exposure during the 1840s-1860s. Numerous articles promoting polygenist views were published in the ''American Journal of Science and Arts'' during this time period. The archeologist
Ephraim George Squier Ephraim George Squier (June 17, 1821 – April 17, 1888), usually cited as E. G. Squier, was an American archaeologist, history writer, painter and newspaper editor. Biography Squier was born in Bethlehem, New York, the son of a minister, Joel ...
helped Morton's polygenism by excavating an ancient cranium from the midwestern mounds and sending a drawing of it to Morton. Morton found its similarities striking to Central and South American crania, confirming his belief that the American Indian nations had a common and indigenous origin. Morton's polygenism explicitly stated the Mound Builders were an American Indian race of great antiquity, they did not migrate from Asia, and their physical form has remained essentially unchanged in their descendants. Both Squier and Gliddon demonstrated for Morton the permanence of racial characteristics, and the suitability of each race to the region for which it had been created. American Indians supported Morton's conclusions, whilst some white archaeologists supported Morton. Others such as William Pidgeon did not accept Morton's conclusions because at the time some white archaeologists such as Pidgeon could not believe that Native Americans had created the archaeological remains they saw around them; instead William Pidgeon wrote a book called ''Traditions of Dee-Coo-Dah and Antiquarian Researches'' in 1858. In the book Pidgeon attempts to prove that a vanished race, culturally superior to and existing earlier than the American Indians, occupied America first and that The Mound Builders were not Native Americans. Pidgeon's book was revealed mostly to be a hoax. The famed archaeologist Theodore H. Lewis later revealed that Pidgeon had fabricated most of his research and distorted much of the rest of it, mapping mounds where none existed and changing the arrangement of existing mound groups to suit his needs. Morton's work gained more support because his work was considered to be evidence of true objective science unlike others such as Pidgeon. Morton won his reputation as the great data-gatherer and objectivist of American Science. Oliver Wendell Holmes praised Morton for "the severe and cautious character" of his works, which "from their very nature are permanent data for all future students of ethnology". By 1850 Agassiz had developed a unique form of co-Adamism. God he believed had created several different zoological provinces with different races in them, but also fauna and animals specific to those regions. An essay of Agassiz promoting this theory with maps of the zoological zones was attached as a preface to ''Types of Mankind'' in collaboration with Morton, Gliddon, Nott and others. Agassiz's theory developed some support amongst Christians, and he often wrote articles in Christian magazines claiming his views on polygenism were compatible with the bible. Christian fundamentalists however who held to Young Earth Creationism and strict monogenism (i.e. everyone on Earth from Adam and Eve) attacked his views, as well as those of Gliddon and Nott. Unlike Josiah Nott, the slave-owner from Alabama, Agassiz was never a supporter of slavery. He claimed his views had nothing to do with politics.


Effect of evolutionary ideas and debates from the 1860s

The notion that races were separate and came together by hybridism, rather than being variations from a common stock, was cast into doubt with the publication of Darwin's ''
Origin of Species ''On the Origin of Species'' (or, more completely, ''On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life''),The book's full original title was ''On the Origin of Species by Me ...
'' in 1859, which Agassiz opposed till his death. Yet the influence of polygenism persisted for many years. For example, the Hamitic Hypothesis, which argued that certain African populations were the descendants of a proto-white invasion in the ancient past, was influenced by polygenism and continued to hold sway in linguistics and anthropology until the 1950s. Darwin did not address man's origin directly at this stage, and the argument continued for a number of years, with the creation of the Anthropological Society of London in 1863 in the shadow of the
American Civil War The American Civil War (April 12, 1861 – May 26, 1865; also known by other names) was a civil war in the United States. It was fought between the Union ("the North") and the Confederacy ("the South"), the latter formed by states ...
, in opposition to the abolitionist Ethnological Society. The Anthropologicals had the Confederate agent
Henry Hotze Henry Hotze (September 2, 1833 – April 19, 1887) was a Swiss American propagandist for the Confederate States of America during the American Civil War. He acted as a Confederate agent in Great Britain, attempting to build support for the South ...
permanently on their council. The two societies did not heal their differences until they merged in 1871 to form the Anthropological Institute. Georges Pouchet, the French naturalist and anatomist, was a polygenist. Pouchet made contributions in several scientific fields, and specialised in comparative anatomy of fishes and whales. He was a prime advocate of polygeny, and was the author of an anthropological work titled'' De la Pluralité des Races Humaines'' (1858), which was translated into English as ''The Plurality of the Human Race'' in 1864 by the Anthropological Society. John Thurnam with Joseph Barnard Davis published a work in two volumes under the title of ''Crania Britannica'' in 1865, important for
craniometry Craniometry is measurement of the cranium (the main part of the skull), usually the human cranium. It is a subset of cephalometry, measurement of the head, which in humans is a subset of anthropometry, measurement of the human body. It is dis ...
. Thurnam and Davis were both believers in polygenism, in the form that different races had been created separately. Davis was a collector of crania, and had over 1700 specimens. Because of the racial differences of the crania, Davis and Thurnam believed that proofs of polygenism were to be found in studying the skull types of different races. Davis also wrote ''Thesaurus craniorum: catalogue of the skulls of the various races of man'' (1875). Although it took many years, polygenism, which required species to be created in specific geographic locations and to remain immutable, has been almost entirely replaced among scientists by Darwin's theory of evolution from a common ancestor. Persistent antagonism to Darwinian theory is today primarily a matter of religious or political viewpoint.


Polygenist evolution

Polygenist evolution is the belief that humans evolved independently from separate species of apes. This can be traced back to
Carl Vogt August Christoph Carl Vogt (; 5 July 18175 May 1895) was a German scientist, philosopher, popularizer of science, and politician who emigrated to Switzerland. Vogt published a number of notable works on zoology, geology and physiology. All his l ...
in 1864. Polygenist evolution allowed polygenists to link each race to an altogether different ape. This was shown in the work of Hermann Klaatsch and F. G. Crookshank.
Carl Vogt August Christoph Carl Vogt (; 5 July 18175 May 1895) was a German scientist, philosopher, popularizer of science, and politician who emigrated to Switzerland. Vogt published a number of notable works on zoology, geology and physiology. All his l ...
believed that the inhabitants of Africa were related to the ape, and were separate from those of European descent. In Chapter VII of his ''Lectures of man'' (1864) he compared both ethnicities, describing them as "two extreme human types". The difference between them, he claimed, are greater than those between two species of ape; and this proves the two are a separate species altogether. Gustav Jahoda, Images of savages: ancient roots of modern prejudice in Western culture, 1999, p. 83 In an unusual blend of contemporary evolutionary thinking and
pre-Adamism The pre-Adamite hypothesis or pre-Adamism is the theological belief that humans (or intelligent yet non-human creatures) existed before the biblical character Adam. Pre-Adamism is therefore distinct from the conventional Abrahamic belief that Ada ...
, the theistic evolutionist and geologist Alexander Winchell argued in his 1878 book ''Adamites and Preadamites'' for the pre-Adamic origins of the human race on the basis that Africans were too racially inferior to have developed from the Biblical Adam. Winchell also believed that the laws of evolution operated according to the will of God. Before Darwin published his theory of evolution and
common descent Common descent is a concept in evolutionary biology applicable when one species is the ancestor of two or more species later in time. All living beings are in fact descendants of a unique ancestor commonly referred to as the last universal comm ...
in his ''Origin of Species'' (1859), scientific theories or models of Polygenism (such as Agassiz's) were strictly
creationist Creationism is the religious belief that nature, and aspects such as the universe, Earth, life, and humans, originated with supernatural acts of divine creation. Gunn 2004, p. 9, "The ''Concise Oxford Dictionary'' says that creationism is 't ...
. Even after Darwin's book was published, Agassiz still stuck to his scientific form of polygenist creationism and denounced the idea of evolution. However, by the late 19th century most scientific polygenists had abandoned Agassiz's creationism and began to embrace polygenist forms of evolution. This even included many students of Agassiz, including
Nathaniel Shaler Nathaniel Southgate Shaler (February 20, 1841 – April 10, 1906) was an American paleontologist and geologist who wrote extensively on the theological and scientific implications of the theory of evolution. Biography Born to a slave-holding fami ...
, who had studied under Agassiz at
Harvard Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher l ...
. Shaler continued to believe in polygenism, but believed the different races evolved from different primates. The prominent French anthropologist
Paul Broca Pierre Paul Broca (, also , , ; 28 June 1824 – 9 July 1880) was a French physician, anatomist and anthropologist. He is best known for his research on Broca's area, a region of the frontal lobe that is named after him. Broca's area is involv ...
by 1878 had also converted from creationist polygenism to accepting a form of polygenist evolution. In his work ''The Descent of Man'' (1871),
Charles Darwin Charles Robert Darwin ( ; 12 February 1809 – 19 April 1882) was an English naturalist, geologist, and biologist, widely known for his contributions to evolutionary biology. His proposition that all species of life have descended f ...
and some of his supporters argued for the monogenesis of the human species, seeing the common origin of all humans as essential for
evolutionary theory Evolution is change in the heritable characteristics of biological populations over successive generations. These characteristics are the expressions of genes, which are passed on from parent to offspring during reproduction. Variatio ...
. This is known as the single-origin hypothesis. Darwin even dedicated a chapter of his ''The Descent of Man'' to an attempt to refute the polygenists and support common ancestry of all races. Polygenist evolution views however continued into the early 20th century, and still found support amongst prominent scientists.
Alfred Russel Wallace Alfred Russel Wallace (8 January 1823 – 7 November 1913) was a British naturalist, explorer, geographer, anthropologist, biologist and illustrator. He is best known for independently conceiving the theory of evolution through natural s ...
was also an advocate of polygenist evolution, claiming that the physical differences in races must have occurred at such a remote time in the past before humans had any intelligence, when natural selection was still operative on human bodies. The differentiation into separate races with distinct physical traits must have happened so soon after humans had just appeared on Earth that for all practical purposes all races had always been distinct. In contrast to most of Darwin's supporters,
Ernst Haeckel Ernst Heinrich Philipp August Haeckel (; 16 February 1834 – 9 August 1919) was a German zoologist, naturalist, eugenicist, philosopher, physician, professor, marine biologist and artist. He discovered, described and named thousands of new ...
put forward a doctrine of evolutionary polygenism based on the ideas of the linguist and polygenist
August Schleicher August Schleicher (; 19 February 1821 – 6 December 1868) was a German linguist. His great work was ''A Compendium of the Comparative Grammar of the Indo-European Languages'' in which he attempted to reconstruct the Proto-Indo-European languag ...
, in which several different language groups had arisen separately from speechless prehuman Urmenschen, which themselves had evolved from simian ancestors. These separate languages had completed the transition from animals to man, and, under the influence of each main branch of languages, humans had evolved as separate species, which could be subdivided into races. Haeckel divided human beings into ten races, of which the Caucasian was the highest and the primitives were doomed to extinction. Haeckel claimed that Africans have stronger and more freely movable toes than any other race, which he interpreted as evidence that members of the race were closely related to apes. Reasoning that apes use their toes to cling tightly to tree branches, Haeckel compared Africans to "four-handed" apes. Haeckel also believed that Blacks were savages and that Whites were significantly more civilized.


Modern religious adherents

* A tenet of Raëlism holds that the different races of humans were created by separate teams of extraterrestrial scientists. * Several minor Christian groups still embrace Biblical polygenism (pre-Adamism or co-Adamism).


See also

*
Historical definitions of race The concept of race as a categorization of anatomically modern humans (''Homo sapiens'') has an extensive history in Europe and the Americas. The contemporary word ''race'' itself is modern; historically it was used in the sense of "nation, eth ...
*
Monogenism Monogenism or sometimes monogenesis is the theory of human origins which posits a common descent for all human races. The negation of monogenism is polygenism. This issue was hotly debated in the Western world in the nineteenth century, as the ...
*
Multiregional origin of modern humans The multiregional hypothesis, multiregional evolution (MRE), or polycentric hypothesis is a scientific model that provides an alternative explanation to the more widely accepted "Out of Africa" model of monogenesis for the pattern of human evoluti ...
* Polygenesis (linguistics)


References


External links


"Darwin the liberator: How evolutionary thought undermined the rationale for slavery"
''Washington Post'' (February 15, 2009). (Review of book exploring Charles Darwin's opposition to polygenism.) {{Historical definitions of race Creationism Race (human categorization) Scientific racism