EXAMPLES TENDING TO PROVE THAT THE INTERMIXTURE OF CERTAIN RACES OF MEN
ARE NOT EUGENESIC.
In the first part of this essay we have endeavoured to establish that
certain human cross-breeds possess an unlimited fecundity, both in
their direct alliances and with either of the parent races, whence we
have inferred that eugenesic hybridity really exists in mankind.
We intend now to investigate the results of certain intermixtures more
disparate, and review a number of facts tending to the conclusion that
all human cross-breeds are not eugenesic.
Let us observe at the outset, how far the phenomena of eugenesic or
non-eugenesic hybridity may affect the solution of the great question
pending between the Monogenists and the Polygenists.
What in animals in general, characterises the eugenesic hybridity,
is the unlimited fecundity of mongrels of the first degree between
themselves. It is by no means necessary that the parent species should
be as prolific in their crossings as in their direct unions, nor that
the mongrels should be as productive as their parents, as large, as
strong, and as long-lived, etc. Supposing, for instance, that the
she-wolf conceives with more difficulty with the mastiff than with her
proper mate; supposing even that this crossing is only efficacious by
way of exception; that it succeeds only once out of ten, instead of
succeeding constantly as it occurs in animals of the same species;
it would be sufficient, if in this tenth case the mongrels are very
prolific to pronounce the crossing eugenesic. Supposing also, that the
hybrid wolf-dogs of the first degree produced only litters of about
two or three, that is to say, only half the number usually produced
by she-wolves and bitches, the result would be that this intermediate
race would breed less rapidly by half than the pure species; but,
provided the productiveness of the mongrels does not descend below the
degree necessary for the preservation of the species, and provided it
can repair the loss at every generation, the crossing would still be
eugenesic, nor would it cease being so, even if the breed were only
half as strong as their parents, and only half as long-lived.
When, therefore, a physiologist wishes to demonstrate the existence of
that degree of hybridity which we have termed eugenesic, he selects
two perfectly recognised distinct species of animals, crosses them,
studies their breeds, and if he finds that they are indefinitely
prolific, it is sufficient for him to affirm the existence of eugenesic
hybridity--that is to say, that the physiological definition of
the _species_ is unacceptable. But when a zoologist, in studying
two races of animals, the specific determination of which is still
contested, endeavours to establish that these two races are merely
varieties of the same species, and when in order to weaken the
differential anatomical characters pointed out by his adversaries, he
invokes the physiological analogy exhibited by intermixture, we have
a right to expect more than a partial demonstration. We must first
prove that the intermixture of the two races constitutes a case of
eugenesic hybridity; for if the cross-breed are not between themselves
indefinitely prolific, it is certain that the two races are not of the
same species. This first point being established, would not yet lead
to any conclusion, since animals of different species may engender
eugenesic breeds. He must, therefore, completely analyse all the
phenomena of reproduction and prove that they are exactly the same in
the parent races and in the hybrid race. It is not merely the sexual
analogy but the sexual identity which must be rendered evident; for
from his point of view, it is not sufficient that the two races in
question should be homogenesic in some degree, they must be entirely
homogeneous, and the least genital difference becomes an argument
against the proposition he sustains. If the cross-breed, though
very prolific, are less so than their parents, or less productive
in their crossings than their direct alliances; or, finally, if the
investigation of these crossings exhibits any functional inequality,
it might become very probable that the two races do not belong to the
same species. Such would also be the case if the cross-breed were less
strong and vivacious than the individuals of the pure race, or if one
of the crossings is more productive than the inverse crossing, as is
observed in certain cases of hybridity, which approach more or less of
_unilateral hybridity_. The existence of one of these phenomena might
prove that the two races are not homogeneous, and might lead us to
think that they are not of the same species.
The monogenists, who have based the demonstration of the unity of the
human species upon the physiological character of the prolificacy of
the cross-breeds, have not taken into account these elements. They have
confined themselves to the assertions that all human races can produce
cross-breeds, and that all these breeds are prolific. Now, admitting
for a moment that these assertions are exact, the conclusion they have
drawn from them is still contestable, until they can demonstrate that
the study of these cross-breeds reveals no genital inequality between
the parent races.
But what becomes of their argumentation, if it be proved that all
intermixtures are not eugenistic, that is to say, that certain
mongrels are not between themselves indefinitely prolific; that other
cross-breeds become sterile in the first generation; and, finally,
that certain races are so little homogenesic, that the birth of
cross-breeds of the first degree is more or less exceptional? If one
of these propositions can be effectually established, the monogenists
would have little cause to congratulate themselves for having appealed
to physiology. They would, on the contrary, have furnished their
adversaries with deadly weapons, and their doctrine would be demolished
on the battle field they have themselves chosen.
The facts I intend to exhibit tend to prove that it was a great
error to consider all intermixtures of men as eugenesic. Obliged as
I am to refer to testimonies which, perhaps, do not always exhibit a
desirable precision, some doubts may hover over my conclusion; this
much, however, will result from this sketch, that the examination of
the laws of hybridity is far from being favourable to the doctrine of
monogenists.
We shall study the cross-breeds both in relation to their fecundity
and their physical and moral validity; for, from our point of view, it
is sufficient to prove that certain cross-breeds are inferior to the
parent races, as regards longevity, vigour, health, and intelligence,
to render it very probable that the two races are not of the same
species.
When a monogenist is called upon to demonstrate that all human
intermixtures are eugenesic, the first example which he ordinarily
cites is that of the Mulattoes in America, the issue of the union of
European colonists and African negresses. This example, which has for
a long time been considered as decisive, might not be without a reply;
for there exist races differing much more from us than the races of the
western coast of Africa; but the question here is, whether it be quite
true that all American Mulattoes are eugenesic.
We meet, first, with this fact, namely, the union of the Negro with a
white woman is frequently sterile, whilst that of a white man with a
negress is perfectly fecund. This might tend to establish between these
two races a species of hybridity analogous to that existing between
goats and sheep, which we have termed _unilateral hybridity_. Professor
Serres, fully alive to the gravity of this fact has given the following
explanation: “One of the characters of the Ethiopian race[24] consists
in the length of the penis compared with that of the Caucasian race.
This dimension coincides with the length of the uterine canal in the
Ethiopian female, and both have their cause in the form of the pelvis
in the Negro race. There results from this physical disposition, that
the union of the Caucasian man with an Ethiopian woman is easy and
without any inconvenience for the latter. The case is different in the
union of the Ethiopian with a Caucasian woman, who suffers in the act,
the neck of the uterus is pressed against the sacrum, so that the act
of reproduction is not merely painful, but _frequently non-productive_.”
This explanation, though based upon an anatomical character perfectly
correct, is yet far from being satisfactory; but we have quoted it here
to show that one of the two most eminent monogenists of our epoch has
admitted as a perfectly authentic fact, that the union of Caucasian
women with Negroes is very frequently non-productive.
Mr. Theodore Waitz, author of a scientific treatise on Anthropology
(the first volume is entirely devoted to the study of general
doctrines), has carefully examined the question of the intermixture of
races, and endeavoured to reconcile the results of these crossings with
the system of monogenists. He was, nevertheless, obliged to admit, from
the numerous documents collected, that in many cases the cross-breeds
are feebly constituted, Thus, in Senegal the offspring of the Foulahs
and the Negroes are handsome and more intelligent than the latter, but
there are amongst them many stammerers, blind, hunchbacks, and idiots.
The children of Arabs and the women of Darfour are debilitated and
little vivacious, and the author adds _that the children of a European
woman and a Negro are rarely vigorous_.[25]
It seems thus to result from these various investigations, that the
union between the Negro and a white woman is little productive, and
that their offspring is neither vigorous nor vivacious. Nevertheless,
we admit this conclusion with some reserve, because the avowed unions
of Negroes with white women are comparatively rare, and consequently
the authors who have spoken of them could only have their inferences
upon a few facts. The inverse intermixture between the white man and
the negress is, on the contrary, very frequent, and as prolific in the
first generation as in the direct alliances between individuals of the
same race.
It is equally known that Mulattoes and Mulatresses are very prolific
in their recrossings with the parent races. The great number of
individuals of every shade, designated by the name Quadroon,
Quinterons, Tercerons, Griffes, Marabouts, Cabres, etc., and by
the collective name of _mixed blood_, proves it. The hybridity of
Whites and Negroes is thus, at least, equal to what we described
in animals by the name of _paragenesic hybridity_. The question now
arises, whether it be eugenesic, that is to say, whether Mulattoes
and Mulatresses of the first degree are indefinitely prolific between
themselves.
It would be imprudent to restrict ourselves to superficial
observations, though positive observations are with difficulty
collected. Mulattoes of the first degree are not a well defined and
circumscribed caste, like the whites and negroes of pure blood.
Mulatresses prefer to unite themselves with the white or with mestizoes
whiter than themselves. Mulattoes are thus frequently obliged to
intermix with either pure negresses, or with mulatresses issued from
a recrossing with the Negro race. There are, nevertheless, a goodly
number of unions between the mestizos of the first degree; but the
individuals issued from these unions have no longer the same chances
of intermarrying as those of the first generation. The number of
individuals of the first degree must, therefore, rapidly decrease
from generation to generation, and the result is, that even if these
cross-breeds were indefinitely prolific between themselves, we could
only, by way of exception, find mulattoes issued in a direct line to
the third or fourth generation, from the direct and exclusive union of
mestizoes of the first degree.
To give to the question at issue a rigorous solution, it is necessary
to study during several generations a population exclusively composed
of mulattoes of the _first degree_. This experience can never be
obtained. We find, indeed, at Hayti, a population nearly composed of
coloured individuals. But these coloured men are mestizos of every
shade, and if this hybrid nation were to subsist in perfect prosperity
during several generations, the unlimited prolifickness of mestizos of
the first degree between themselves would not thereby be demonstrated.
We are, then, in default of a physiological experimentation analogous
to what the monogenists require, in attempting to prove that the
crossing of two species of animals is or is not eugenesic, reduced to
the impressions, or rather appreciation of observers. Most of these
appreciations can only be approximatives wanting a fixed basis. It is
absolutely unknown what is the relative proportion of mulattoes of the
first degree who intermarry between themselves, and such who intermix
with other mestizos, or with individuals of a pure race; nor can we
know what, in a given population, should be the normal proportion of
these mulattos if they were perfectly prolific _between themselves_.
It then becomes very difficult to say whether the number of mulattoes
issued in a direct line from mestizos of the first degree is equal to
the normal proportion, or inferior to it; so that, if they are but
little inferior to their parents in regard to fecundity, the fact
might pass unobserved. The relative sterility of these breeds would
only become evident when it approaches absolute sterility. Between
this degree of prolifickness and perfect fecundity there are many
intermediate degrees, difficult to recognise, and still more difficult
to prove.
The first French observer who has denied the prolifickness of mulattoes
is M. Jacquinot, author of the zoological part of the _Voyage to the
South Pole and Oceania_. We shall reproduce here some passages from
that work. After having spoken of the cross-breeds of animals, M.
Jacquinot continues in the following terms:[26]
“It is the same in the human genus. There the species are very
approximating, and, according to the principles just laid down,
‘that the more species are approximating the greater the chance of
fecundity,’ the mestizos issuing from the intermixture enjoy a certain
degree of prolifickness which, however, as in animals, is not absolute.
Like the latter, they return to the mother’s species in allying
themselves with them; and, independently of their relative fecundity,
new individuals are constantly produced by the union of the parent
races.
“On observing in our colonies that a population of mulattos is
constantly produced and renewed, their fecundity was not doubted; yet
it is very limited. On the one hand the mulattos disappear every moment
in one or the other of the parent races, and if their unions were
constantly between themselves, they would not be long before becoming
extinct....
“In a colony, that is to say in an island, or a part of a continent of
limited extent peopled by Negroes and white men for some centuries, the
greater part of the population should be composed of mulattoes....
“But it is not so, and whatever be the number of mulattoes in the
colonies, the predominance of the Negro and Caucasian species is not
less certain.... There is, besides, a fact known to persons inhabiting
the colonies, that the white women and the negresses are very prolific,
which is not the case with the mulatresses.
“We believe to be the first who has pointed out the sterility in human
cross-breeds. We have not been able to collect precise and positive
observations based on figures; but we think that the figures will be
soon forthcoming now that the attention of observers is drawn to the
subject.”
The avowal which terminates this passage, much diminishes its
importance. M. Jacquinot, not having sojourned long in the various
countries he visited, was only able to collect superficial observations
in regard to a question which requires long and minute researches. But
Mr. Nott, one of the most eminent anthropologists of America, was in a
better condition to study this subject.
Living in a country where the Caucasian and Ethiopian races are
much mixed, and enabled by his profession as a physician to make
his observations on a great number of individuals, he arrived at
conclusions similar to those of M. Jacquinot. His first essay on
hybridity appeared in 1842. It was but a short paper, which attracted
but little notice, and which we have not been able to consult, no copy
of it being in the Paris library. M. Jacquinot, whose work appeared
in 1846, had certainly no knowledge of this essay, his observations
having been made in 1836-40, before M. Nott had published his own. We
are not, however, engaged here to discuss the question of priority, we
state merely the fact that two distinguished observers studying the
same subject, unknown to each other, arrived at the same conclusions
relating to the sterility of Mulattoes.
In his essay of 1812, Dr. Nott maintained the following propositions,
which we extract from a subsequent publication.[27]
1. That _Mulattoes_ are the shortest lived of any class of the human
race.
2. That _Mulattoes_ are intermediate in intelligence between the blacks
and the whites.
3. That they are less capable of undergoing fatigue and hardships than
either the blacks or whites.
4. That the _Mulatto-women_ are peculiarly delicate, and subject to a
variety of chronic diseases. That they are bad breeders, bad nurses,
liable to abortions, and that their children generally die young.
5. That when _Mulattoes_ intermarry, they are less prolific than when
crossed on the parent stock.
6. That when a _Negro_ man married a white woman, the offspring partook
more largely of the Negro type than when the reverse connection had
effect.
7. That Mulattoes, like Negroes, although unacclimated, enjoy
extraordinary exemption from yellow-fever when brought to Charleston,
Savannah, Mobile, or New Orleans.
The propositions, 1, 3, 4, and 5, are the only ones connected with
our subject. They confirm, and even enhance, in certain respects, M.
Jacquinot’s assertions, yet are they contested, and Dr. Nott himself
has found it necessary to restrict their application. He had made his
observations in South Carolina where he found the Mulattoes little
prolific and short-lived. Having changed his residence, he obtained
different results. At Mobile, New Orleans, Pensacola, towns on the Gulf
of Mexico, he found among the Mulattoes many instances of manifest
longevity and prolificacy, not merely in their crossed but in their
direct alliances. What was the cause of this difference? Dr. Nott
inquired whether the difference in the results might not depend upon
the difference in the ethnological elements in the crossing. All
the Europeans who have colonised America did not belong to the same
race. The Caucasians, as is well known, are naturally divided in two
groups:--the light-haired race, with grey or blue eyes, a white skin;
and the brown races, with a deeper complexion and brown or black hair.
The first occupy Northern Europe; the second, Southern Europe. There is
thus a little less disparity, and a little more affinity between the
Europeans of the South and the Negroes, than between the latter and the
Northern Europeans, so that when we hear that intermixture succeeds
better in the first than in the second case, it should not surprise us.
But South Carolina, where the Mulattoes get on so indifferently, has
been colonised by the Anglo-Saxons; whilst the shores of the Gulf of
Mexico, where the Mulattoes are more prospering, have been colonised
by the French (Louisiana) and by the Spaniards (Florida). Such is the
explanation offered by Dr. Nott. Still in maintaining his conclusions
on the issues of Negro women, and men of the Germanic race, he thinks
that they are not applicable to the Mulattoes whose parents belong to a
Caucasian race more or less dark in complexion. Analogous differences
are often observed in animals in such crossings when they are placed
in connections with species more or less approximate. Before, however,
accepting Dr. Nott’s explanation, it may be as well to examine whether
the fact may not be differently explained.
South Carolina, comprised between 32° and 35° N. lat., is situated
beyond the zone where the African Negroes live: New Orleans, Mobile,
and Pensacola are situated nearer the tropics, between the 30° and
31°, and we find in Africa, in Northern Sahara, south of Algiers, some
tribes of Negroes who have lived in that latitude from time immemorial.
Though the climate does not altogether depend on latitude, it may be
readily believed that the Negroes become sooner acclimated upon the
shores of the Gulf of Mexico than in the more northern regions. But
it is known that men transplanted into climates differing much from
that in which their race thrives may, by this simple fact, greatly
lose their fecundity. It is not always so, but considering that it
does happen, we have a right to ask whether the difference pointed out
by Dr. Nott between the Mulattoes of South Carolina, and those of the
region of the Gulf may not be owing to this cause.
This interpretation is, however, in opposition to two orders of facts.
On the one hand, the Negroes and Negresses of South Carolina are
perfectly prolific between themselves.[28] The climate of that country
has not weakened their generative powers, and there is no reason why,
by their alliances with a white race acclimated in that part, there
should he produced an offspring less acclimated than their parents. The
diminished vitality and fecundity can, therefore, not be attributed to
the influence of the media in which they are brought up.
On the other hand, a result similar to that mentioned by Nott, as
regards South Carolina, seems to have been obtained in Jamaica under
the 18°, corresponding nearly to the latitude of Senegal and Timbuctoo.
This island is situated south of Cuba, Hayti, and Porto Rico, where
Negroes and Mulattoes thrive, but these islands have been colonised by
the French and the Spaniards, whilst Jamaica is an _English_ colony.[29]
The Mulattoes of Jamaica have thus the same ethnologic origin as those
of Carolina; and the following remarks from the _History of Jamaica_,
by Long, entirely confirm Nott’s opinion.[30]
“The Mulattoes of Jamaica,” says Long, “are generally well
proportioned, and the Mulatto women have fine features, and seem to
have more of the White than of the Negro in their blood. Some of
them have married women of their own colour, but these marriages are
generally sterile. They seem in this respect to resemble certain mules,
being less capable of producing between themselves than with the
Whites or Blacks. Some instances may possibly have occurred, where,
upon the intermarriage of two Mulattoes, the woman has borne children,
which children have grown to maturity; _but I never heard of such an
instance_.
“Those Mulattoes of Jamaica, of which I speak, have married young,
have received some education, and are distinguished by their chaste
and regular conduct. The observations made regarding them have a great
degree of certainty. They do not breed, though there is nothing to
indicate that they would not be prolific by intermarrying either with
the Blacks or Whites.
“In searching for facts contrary to this opinion, it is requisite to
discard the suspicion that the Mulatress has had intercourse with any
other man than her Mulatto husband, and there would still remain the
question, whether the son of a Mulatto, married to the daughter of two
other Mulattoes, is capable of producing and forming a durable race.”
Such a grave fact could not be allowed to pass unchallenged.
Professor Waitz, much embarrassed by it, could only oppose to it a
passage extracted from a work published in 1845 by Lewis, _On the
Negroes in the West Indies_. “Lewis,” says Waitz (_Anthropologie der
Naturvölker_), “expressly denies the sterility of the Mulattoes of
Jamaica in their marriages between themselves, and observes, that they
are as prolific as the Blacks and Whites, but that they are for the
most part flabby and weak, and their children have little vitality.”
Long said he knew of no instance where the children of Mulattoes
arrived at maturity. To refute this assertion, known instances
should have been cited. But Lewis neglects doing so.[31] He says,
on the contrary, that the children, from similar marriages, possess
little vitality. Though this expression does not necessarily imply
the impossibility of arriving at adult age, it tends at least to the
conclusion that the children have little chance to reach it; and when
we consider that the preceding passage was intended to refute Long’s
assertions, it is surprising how little satisfies Professor Waitz. At
any rate, it proves that he could find no other positive document in
opposition to the fact mentioned by Long.
This is, perhaps, no reason for accepting without reserve the
opinions of Dr. Nott. Before giving a definite judgment, we must
wait for further numerous, authentic, and scientific observations.
Nevertheless, it must be remarked, that the indefinite fecundity of
Mulattoes had been admitted as an axiom, which it was thought there was
no necessity of disproving. It was sufficient to say there are many
Mulattoes, without investigating whether they maintain themselves,
or by continuous intermixture with the parent stocks. The first who
wished to inquire more closely has, by his observations, been led to
results opposed to general opinion. To these observations, presenting
apparently the guarantee of authenticity, positive observation should
be opposed; and it is requisite that the latter should be specially
collected in countries where the _Germanic_ race has intermarried
with the Negro race of Western Africa. The investigations which might
be made in the French, Spanish, or Portuguese colonies would have no
direct application.
The authors, moreover, we have cited, are far from being the only ones
who have denied the fecundity of the Mulattoes in the West Indies.
Van Amringe and Hamilton Smith assert, that without a reunion with
the parent stocks the Mulattoes would soon become extinct. Day says
that Mulattoes are rarely prolific between themselves; and Waitz,
somewhat shaken by these testimonies, adds in a note, “The sterility
of Mulattoes, when it is complete, may be compared with that fact
recognised by Wirgman in plants, that the hybrids of intermediate types
between the two parent stocks are sterile, whilst those resembling
one or the other species are prolific.”[32] From these facts and
testimonies there seems to result--1. That the Mulattoes of the
Germanic and Ethiopian races possess little prolificacy: 2. That they
are inferior in this respect to the Mulattoes born by the intercourse
of Negro women and men belonging to the more or less dark complexioned
Caucasian races.
Mulattoes of the latter kind exist in large numbers in the greater part
of the Antilles, South America, Central America, Mexico, Mauritius,
Bourbon, and Senegal. All these countries have been colonised by the
French, Spaniards, or Portuguese. The Mulattoes born there are fecund
in their intermixture with the parent stock, as the Mulattoes of
Germanic origin; they are also prolific between themselves, at least
in the first generation. Are they equally prolific in their direct
alliances as in their mixed ones? Are their children arriving at
maturity as the others? And finally, when these children intermarry,
are they and their descendants prolific? These questions are yet
unanswered. They can only be solved after a long series of observations
collected by men of science; not by travellers who view the populations
superficially, but by close observers, and principally by physicians
resident in these localities. In the mean while, here is another
passage from the work of Prof. Waitz, quoted by him from Seemann.[33]
“The Mulattoes of the Negroes and Whites at Panamá are prolific between
themselves, but their children are brought up with difficulty; whilst
the families of the pure races produce less children, which however
arrive at maturity.” The Europeans of Panamá are of Spanish origin. The
prolifickness of the Mulattoes of the first degree is clearly indicated
in this passage, but doubts may be entertained as to the fecundity of
their descendants. The intermixtures of Negroes and Europeans are not
the only ones the results of which exhibit defects to the observers.
“The Mulattoes,” says M. Boudin,[34] “are very often inferior to the
two parent stocks, both in vitality, intelligence, or morality. Thus
the Mulattoes of Pondicherry, known by the name of Topas, exhibit a
mortality not only more considerable than that of the Indians, but
greater than the Europeans, though the latter are considerably shorter
lived in India than in Europe. Positive documents on this point have
been published in the _Revue Coloniale_. So much as to the vitality.
“In Java, the Mulattoes of the Dutch and Malays are so little
intelligent that they could never be employed as functionaries. All
Dutch historians are agreed upon this point. This much for their
intelligence.
“The Mulattoes of Negroes and Indians, known by the name of _Zambos_
in Peru and Nicaragua, form the worst class of citizens. They compose
four-fifths of the prison population. This fact, already mentioned by
Tschudi,[35] has recently been confirmed by Squier. So much as regards
morality.
“There are, however, certain physical qualities which may be acquired
by the intermixture of races. Such are pathological immunities. The
Mulattoes of the West Indies are, like the Negroes, exempt from the
yellow fever.”
The fecundity of Mulattoes is not touched in this passage, not having
been the subject of discussion. The question merely was whether the
prevalent opinion, that intermixture of improved races physically,
intellectually, and morally, was in accordance with well observed
facts. Hence, M. Boudin confined his observations to the limited
intelligence exhibited by the Mulattoes issued from the union of the
Dutch of Java with the Malay women. But in his _Treatise on Medical
Geography_,[36] he expresses, with regard to the Mulattoes, an opinion
that they are not productive beyond the third generation. This fact,
announced by Dr. Yvan, which is confirmed by other testimonies, has not
been contested. Waitz borrows from Graf Görtz some particulars which
are not without interest.
“The Lipplappen,” he says (this is the name of the Mulattoes of Java),
“do not breed beyond the third generation. Flabby and weakly, they
become developed up to the fifteenth year, when the development is
arrested. At the third generation, girls only are born, which are
sterile.[37] This phase of sterility is very curious, and deserves well
the attention of physiologists.”
It is, however, necessary to inquire whether the sterility of the
Lipplappen depends upon intermixture or upon other causes. The climate
of the islands of the Sunda straits is very injurious to Europeans.
The Dutch do not perpetuate their race at Batavia; and even without
intermarrying with the natives they become sometimes sterile at the
second generation.[38] The sterility of the natives may, then, be
attributed to the climate. These results, moreover prove, from a
verbal communication of Dr. Yvan to M. de Quatrefages, that in other
Dutch colonies of the Great Indian Archipelago, the Mulattoes are
prolific.[39] It is thus not demonstrated that the sterility of the
Lipplappen is the result of their hybridity.
M. de Quatrefages, in order to explain the difference of results
produced by the intermixture of the Dutch and the Malays at Java, and
other Dutch colonies, supposes that this difference is due to the
influence of mediums. This is possible; but there are other influences
which must be taken into account, namely, the numerical proportion
of either of the two races who intermarry. Where the Europeans are
few in number, the Mulattoes of the first degree are also very few;
those who intermarry between themselves are still less numerous, and
the rest ally themselves with the parent stock, chiefly with the
indigenous race, which is preponderating. Where, on the contrary,
the European population is considerable, the Mulattoes of the first
degree are sufficiently numerous to constitute a sort of intermediate
caste, which, without altogether escaping a recrossing, contract
nearly all their alliances with their equals.[40] In the first case,
most individuals of mixed blood approximate more to the indigenous
race than to the foreign; that is to say, that the Mulattoes of the
second, third degree, etc., are much more numerous than the Mulattoes
of the first degree. But in proportion as a recrossing is effected,
the influence of hybridity diminishes, and becomes effaced. In the
second case, on the contrary, the greater part of the Mulattoes are
of the first degree,[41] and, much more than the rest, subject to the
influence of hybridity; and if it be true that hybridity causes a
diminution of fecundity, it is easily understood that the prolificness
must vary according to the relative proportion of the two races. Now,
Batavia is the great centre of the population of the India Archipelago;
there the Europeans are most numerous; it is chiefly there that the
Lipplappen form a distinct class, and it is precisely there that
their defective prolificness is found. I do not pretend to say that
this interpretation is perfectly correct; I merely advance it as an
hypothesis to be verified. Here, however, we have a fact which may
enhance its value. I borrow it from the work of Prof. Waitz. It is
known that a large number of Chinese are found in the eastern and
western isles of the Indian Archipelago. They are relatively less
numerous in Java and Sumatra, where their commerce cannot sustain the
competition with the Dutch. “The descendants of the Chinese and the
Malay women in the eastern islands of the Indian Archipelago,” says
Waitz, “soon become extinct; whilst at Java, _where the pure Chinese
are few in number_. The Malay-Chinese Mulattoes amount to 200,000.”[42]
If the defective fecundity of the Lipplappen of Java is due to the
deleterious influence of climate, it is very difficult to attribute
the great prolificness of the Malay-Chinese to the benignity of
the same climate. Moreover, the more eastern islands, where the
latter Mulattoes do not thrive, are more unhealthy than Java. There
seems, therefore to result, from the facts quoted by Waitz, that the
Malay-Chinese thrive where the Chinese are few in number, and that
they decay where the Chinese are numerous; that is to say, that the
fecundity of the hybrid population augments in proportion as the
conditions favourable to a return crossing with the Malay race are
present. This amounts to the same thing, namely, that the Mulattoes of
the second, third, and fourth degree are more prolific than those of
the first, which certainly corresponds with the laws of hybridity among
animals. These facts, however, require to be verified and completed
before they can serve as a basis to arrive at a definite conclusion.[43]
These examples of the Mulattoes of Malasia, which we accept with
reserve, tend to demonstrate that the results of intermixture do not
exclusively depend on the degree of proximity of race; for there
is certainly a less zoological distance between the Chinese and
the Malays, and between the Malays and the Dutch, than between the
African Negroes and the South Europeans. Yet the Mulattoes of the
French, Portuguese, and Spanish colonies seem gifted with a much
greater prolificacy than the Dutch or Chinese Mulattoes of Malasia.
It is besides known that in Mexico and South America the union of the
indigenous population between the Portuguese or the Spaniards has,
in many localities, produced Mulattoes, the race of which seems to
perpetuate itself.[44]
In investigating hybridity in animals, we have found that
homœogenesis is not always exactly proportional to the degree
of proximity of species; we would especially point out that the
_chabeins_, or hybrids of the goat and the sheep, are superior to the
mules of the ass and the mare, though there is a greater difference
between goats and sheep than between the horse and the ass.[45] It is
not less true that in general, though with some exceptions, the results
of intermixture are more defective in proportion as the species are
more distant from each other. This leads us to study human hybridity in
such regions where the most elevated races have come into contact with
the most inferior races. What are the two races forming the extremes of
the human species? Several English authors express the conviction that
the Anglo-Saxon, or rather the Germanic race, to which they belong, is
the first race of humanity. M. Alex. Harvey is even pleased to believe
that Providence has created it to rule all the rest.[46] Patriotism
is a virtue which is entitled to our esteem. We shall, therefore, not
attempt diminishing the satisfaction of our allies across the straits,
and we shall, at any rate, acknowledge that the race which has produced
a Leibnitz and a Newton is inferior to none.
At the extremity of the world, and nearly at the antipodes of Great
Britain, the English have been for more than half a century in contact
with the Melanesian races, and specially with the Australians and
Tasmanians. The relative degree of inferiority between these latter
races, which differ sensibly in their physical character, may be
open to discussion.[47] It is, however, generally admitted that they
are inferior at least to all other races who have come in permanent
contact with Europeans. The Hottentot race, which has long been
considered to occupy the lowest degree, is evidently superior to them.
The Hottentots, though refractory to education, have, at least, shown
some degree of improvability, while the Australians seem absolutely
incorrigible savages. The English have made the most persevering
attempts to instruct them, but without any success. As they could not
succeed with the adult population, they tried it with children of a
tender age, and educated them with European children in orphan asylums;
they have there learned to mumble some prayers, even to read and write;
but, with approaching puberty, the young pupils succumbed to their
savage instincts, and escaped into the woods to live again with their
parents whom they had never known. At one time young Australians were
transported to England, and confided to the Moravian brothers, who
neglected no cares to improve them. “They have returned as brutish
as they were before,” says M. Garnat; “a proprietor of a farm in the
interior assured me, that he could never succeed to employ them in the
most simple agricultural labour.”[48]
What is known of the Tasmanians scarcely permits us to consider them
superior to the Australians. It must, however, be admitted that those
unfortunate islanders of Van Diemen’s Land have not been so much
attended to as the Australians. The English, so humane and patient as
regards the latter, have committed upon the Tasmanian race, and that
in the nineteenth century, execrable atrocities a hundred times less
excusable than the hitherto unrivalled crimes of which the Spaniards
were guilty in the fifteenth century in the Antilles.
These atrocities have terminated in a regular extermination,[49]
caused, say the optimists, by the absolute unsociability of the
Tasmanians.[50] This is not, in our opinion, a mitigatory circumstance,
but from all these facts there results evidently, that, of all human
beings, the Tasmanians are, or rather were, with the Australians,
nearest to the brutal condition.
The investigation of the results obtained from the intermixture of
Anglo-Saxons with these inferior races, may give us an idea what the
crossing between the two most disparate branches of the human family
may produce.
M. Omalius d’Halloy, President of the Belgian Senate, a venerable
scholar, as well known for his geological as for his anthropological
works, thus concludes the seventh chapter of his _Treatise on the
Races of Man_: “It is remarkable that, though a considerable number of
Europeans now inhabit the same countries as the Andamenes, no mention
is made of the existence of hybrids resulting front their union.”[51]
Under the name of Andamenes, d’Halloy comprises the Australians,
Tasmanians, and all the blacks with woolly hair of Melanesia and
Malasia.
It may, then, be inferred from this passage, either that the Europeans
established in these countries have no connection with the native
black women, which appears inadmissible, as we shall presently show,
or that the intermixture between the two races is perfectly sterile.
This latter assertion is, however, not altogether correct. True it is
that the greater part of travellers make no mention whatever of hybrids
of Melanesia; it is equally true that they are very rare, but still
there exist some. Thus Quoy and Gaymard have seen _one_ hybrid of an
European and a Tasmanian woman.[52] Mr. Gliddon, who unfortunately does
not cite the source from which he has drawn his information, announces
that until the year 1835, when the Tasmanians were exterminated, there
were only known, in the whole of Tasmania, two adult Mulattoes.[53]
This indicates either that few were born, or that they died at an early
age, for the colony, founded in 1803 by a population at first almost
_exclusively masculine_, had, in a few years, considerably increased
by the arrival of convicts and free settlers, nearly all males. Mr.
Jacquinot, after having announced that there were no hybrids in
Australia, adds, “In Hobart Town, and in all Tasmania, there are no
hybrids either.”[54] No other author has, to our knowledge, mentioned
Tasmanian hybrids.
The intermixture of the English with the native women of Australia
has not been more productive. “There are scarcely,” says Jacquinot,
“any Mulattoes of Australians and English mentioned.” This absence
of Mulattoes between two peoples living in contact on the same soil,
proves incontestably the difference of species. It may also be noticed
that if such cross-breeds really existed, they would be easily
recognised.[55] Mr. Lesson, who lived about two months in Sydney and
its environs, and who made several excursions among the natives,
mentions only one cross-breed, the offspring of a white man and the
wife of a chief named Bongari.[56] Cunningham, a great defender of the
Australian race--which, by the way, has finished by killing, and it
is even said eating him--has written two volumes on New South Wales,
in which neither directly nor indirectly is there mention made of
more than one single Mulatto, and it happens that this single Mulatto
is precisely the same of whom Mr. Lesson speaks.[57] No statistical
writer, nor any historian, enumerates cross-breeds among the Australian
population. No where, nevertheless, are the classes of society more
numerous and more distinct. The officials, the colonists born in
Europe, the colonists born in Australia, the convicts, the emancipated,
the descendants of convicts, etc.; form as many classes envious of
and despising each other, they dispute their respective privileges,
and give each other more or less picturesque nick names. There are
sterlings, currencies,[58] the legitimate, the illegitimate,[59] the
pure Merinos, the convicts, the titled, the untitled, the canaries, the
government men, the bushrangers, the emancipists,[60] and some other
classes of immigrants or convicts. In this rich vocabulary there is not
a single word to designate the Mulattoes. Yet in all countries where
races of different colours mix, the language of the locality contains
always distinct denominations for Mulattoes of various shades. Nothing
of the kind exists in Australia. There is even a class of white men,
the _legitimates_, which have also the name of _cross-breeds_.[61] This
word everywhere else would designate Mulattoes, in Australia it means
European convicts, it being thought impossible that the rare issue of
an intermixture between the two races should ever become a part of the
population.
It is, however, not merely in New South Wales that we are struck with
the paucity of cross-breeds between Europeans and Australians; Mr.
McGillivray mentions a similar fact as regards the port of Essingen, an
English colony of Northern Australia.[62]
We may, therefore, accept as an authenticated fact, that the
cross-breeds between Europeans and native women are very rare in
Australia, as they were in Tasmania when the Tasmanian race existed.
This fact is so much in opposition to the general opinion on
the intermixture of human races, that before attributing it to
physiological causes, we must inquire whether it is not owing to some
other causes.
We might be tempted, for instance, to suppose, that there was no
intermixture, and that the ugliness and dirty habits of the native
women bridled the sexual desire of the Europeans. This has been
advanced, not by travellers who have precisely asserted the contrary,
but by honest and sensible reasoners, whose refined taste revolted at
the aspect of the portraits and busts of the Australian women. It would
be a serious fact that a whole race should have such an irresistible
repugnance to another, for nature has only inspired with such a feeling
of repulsion beings of different species, and man is certainly of all
animals the least exclusive. Is there in our seaports a prostitute
sufficiently ugly and old to frighten the sailor? Is it not known that
the Hottentots, whose ugliness is proverbial, have intermixed with the
Europeans of South Africa? We must then set aside such a supposition,
which is not founded upon a correct knowledge of human nature. There
are, moreover, some documents, which induce us to believe that the
Europeans of Australia and Van Diemen’s Land have intermixed with the
native women.
According to Malte-Brun the population of the colony of
Sydney amounted in 1821 to 37,068 individuals, thus distributed.[63]
Free settlers, or liberated convicts, men 12,608
” ” ” women 3,422
” ” ” children 7,224
Convicts of both sexes 13,814
------
37,068
Thus there were among the free adults only twenty-seven women for a
hundred men, that is to say, that seventy-three men in a hundred were
absolutely prevented from marrying.
The relative proportion of convicts of the two sexes is not indicated
in the above account, but it is known that originally the male convicts
formed the great majority, and that there were ever afterwards far
fewer women than men.
In 1825[64] the number of inhabitants amounted to nearly 50,000; but
from this period the convicts were mostly sent to Van Diemen’s Land,
and the white population of Australia diminished rapidly from not
receiving regular reinforcements. In 1836 there were only 36,598 of all
classes.
Free men 13,456 }
” women 7,474 } 20,930
Convicts men 14,135 }
” women 1,513 } 15,668
------
36,598
There were thus, among the convicts, only one woman to nine men, and
among the free population one woman to two men.[65]
Hence may be explained the small increase of the population during
the first periods of the colony and the considerable decrease which
corresponds to the period from 1825 to 1830. In 1845, according to
Henricq,[66] New South Wales had, since its foundation, already
received 90,000 convicts of both sexes, beyond an unknown but
considerable number of voluntary emigrants, yet the whole population
consisted only of 85,000 individuals. At the same period there were in
the free class but three females to five males, and among the convicts
one woman to twelve men. In the colony of Hobart Town, in Tasmania, the
disproportion was somewhat less, for there were five free females to
seven males, and one female convict to twelve men.
It is difficult to believe that the free men deprived of women were
all gifted with the virtue of continency. But admitting this for
a moment, we cannot entertain the same opinion with regard to the
convicts, which are certainly not chosen from the most virtuous classes
of Great Britain. It must be noticed that the female convicts are not
public women in the colony. The government accords certain advantages
to convicts who contract legitimate marriages; this is the first step
towards their liberation, and when a vessel arrives with a cargo
of females they are readily espoused by the convicts. Nine-tenths,
therefore, of the latter are entirely deprived of white women. On the
other hand they procure _gins_ (the name of Australian females) with
the greatest facility, and though it may not be known that many of
them cohabit with the females, it may be easily divined and affirmed.
“The women of the people of Port Jackson,” says Lesson, “look out for
and excite the white men, and prostitute themselves for _a glass of
brandy_.”[67]
After observing that these tribes live chiefly from the produce of
the chase, and come to town to exchange their fish for fish-hooks,
bread, or rum, Cunningham adds that this trade gives rise to scenes
of debauchery, that the prostitution of native females with the whites
had assumed considerable proportions, “considering that the Australians
lend their women to the convicts for a slice of bread or a pipe of
tobacco.”[68] It is useless to cite other testimony after the chief
defender of the Australian race has thus expressed himself.
It is thus perfectly certain that numerous alliances have taken place
and are taking place between the Europeans and the native women. The
inhabitants of the colony, who could not but be aware of it, have had
recourse to a singular hypothesis, accepted by Cunningham and recently
by Waitz. They have imagined that the Australian husbands, excited
by jealousy, killed all the new-born children of mixed blood; and to
these hypothetical massacres (of which there is no proof whatever) they
attribute the rarity of cross-breeds. In order that this tale should
acquire some probability, it is first requisite that all the Australian
women should be under the dominion of jealous and ferocious husbands,
and that none of the females had the maternal instinct sufficiently
developed to save her child from the fury of her husband. Cunningham,
in accepting this explanation, forgets that he in the same page relates
that the Australians prostitute their _gins_ to the first comer for a
pipe of tobacco. Such beings would not feel themselves much dishonoured
by the birth of the strange child. But here is an instance proving that
the Australians are not altogether devoid of humour; showing, at least,
that they have no notion of conjugal honour. Bongarri, of whom we have
already spoken, and who in 1825 was the most celebrated chief of the
Australian hordes of Port Jackson, treated as his son the offspring of
the adulterous intercourse of his _gin_ with a convict of the place.
When he was asked how it came to pass that his son had such a fair
complexion, he replied jocularly, “that his wife was very fond of white
bread and had partaken too much of it.” He invariably returned the same
answer to inquirers.[69] If a warrior chief covered with honourable
scars[70] attaches such small importance to the fidelity of his wife,
and jokes about his dishonour, it is scarcely admissible that the men
of his tribe should be more susceptible in this respect. Yet this
very chief found it, according to Cunningham,[71] quite natural that,
according to the Australian custom, the weakest of two new-born twins
should be killed.
This custom has been cited to show that the Australian women attach no
importance to the lives of their children, and that, consequently, they
would offer no resistance to the massacre of the new-born Mulattoes.
A race of beings, where the females do not love their young, would
scarcely be a human race. The custom of preserving only one twin, and
to sacrifice the other on the day of its birth, seems improbable and
inexplicable; but taking into consideration the famishing condition
of the Australians, the uncertainty and the insufficiency of their
alimentation, the absolute want of social organisation, and the
material difficulty attending the bringing up of only one child, it
may be imagined that the mother, incapable, perhaps, of suckling one
baby, resigns herself to sacrificing one child to save the other. There
is, therefore, no absolute parallel between the custom in regard to
twins and that of the pretended massacre of cross-breeds. If it be
still supposed that the natives of the environs of Sydney, perverted
by their intercourse with convicts, and exasperated by their violence,
have adopted this revolting habit, we should even then only admit
that such a degradation is merely local in its application. Certain
abominations spread from place to place, and are transmitted from
people to people; but a usage so contrary to natural instinct, does
not arise simultaneously, and under the same form in different parts
of a country. The Australians, however, of Sydney, have no means of
transmitting their customs either to the natives of Tasmania, or of
Port Essington in North Australia. Dr. Waitz supposes that even seven
hundred miles from Sydney the natives sacrifice all young Mulattoes.
This supposition is rather hazardous, specially as the traveller whom
he quotes merely says that these Mulattoes do not appear to be capable
of development.[72]
We conclude from this perhaps too lengthy discussion, that the
murder of the Australian Mulattoes is a vulgar tale. Admitting that
such murders occur occasionally, or even that they are frequent,
there should even then be many Mulattoes in Australia provided the
intermixture be very prolific. We can in the above strange explanation
only find a confirmation, and a very strong one too, of the fact we
have established, namely, that the cross-breeds are rare in Australia.
If this fact had not been perfectly evident, there would not have been
any occasion to explain it, and Mr. Cunningham, who has made such
strenuous efforts to reinstate the natives, would not have charged them
with such a terrible accusation.
We have not exhausted the list of hypotheses advanced, to explain the
nearly constant sterility attending the intercourse between Australians
and Tasmanians and the English. It has also been said that for the most
part the intercourse between the two races was accidental, momentary,
and that consequently the native woman has a much greater chance to
become pregnant by her savage husband than by her European lovers,
and that the rarity of Australian Mulattoes had no other cause. M. de
Freycinet seems to have accepted this explanation. “No _permanent_
alliances are formed between the two peoples, though we find here
and there some Mulattoes; but these are merely the result of some
transitory connections of Europeans with Australian women.”[73]
We would first observe that the number of mongrels is in many countries
much more considerable, if the intermixture is effected in the same
manner as is notably the case in South Africa. There are cross-breeds
in several of the Polynesian Islands, where the Europeans have never
permanently settled, but only appeared temporarily. There should,
therefore, be a good number of them in the Australian colonies, even
if it were true that the Whites have never formed a permanent alliance
with the native females. It can, however, not be doubted, that more or
less enduring alliances have taken place between the two races, namely,
that many Whites have kept for months and years Australian concubines
under their roof.[74] This fact positively results from the controversy
raised by Count Strzelecki. This celebrated traveller, who has visited
America and Oceania, remarked that the native women, after having once
lived with the white race, become sterile with the men of their own
race, though they may still be capable of becoming pregnant by white
men. He asserts that he has collected hundreds of such cases among the
Hurons, Seminoles, Araucaños, Polynesians, and Melanesians. He does
not attempt to explain this strange phenomenon, which, he observes, is
owing to some mysterious law, and which appears to him to be one of the
causes of the rapid decay of indigenous populations in regions occupied
by Europeans.[75]
Mr. Alex. Harvey says that Professors Goodsir, Maunsel, and Carmichael
have, from various sources, ascertained that Count Strzelecki’s
assertion is _unquestionable_, and must be considered as the expression
of a law of nature.[76]
M. de Strzelecki has not specified that the sterilisation of the native
females was the consequence of the procreation of cross-breeds. He
merely speaks of sexual relations in general; and it appears to result
from the text, that a native woman who has cohabited for some time with
a European, becomes sterile in the intercourse with men of her own
race, even if she has not produced a child.
It has, however, been assumed that this observer speaks only of such
women who have at least once been impregnated by a European, and it
is in this form that the question has been examined by physiologists.
The question has been asked, how the gestation of a Mulatto’s fœtus
could modify the constitution of the mother to render her barren with
the men of her own race; and Mr. Alex. Harvey,[77] in developing a
theory of Mr. McGillivray, has supposed that the embryo, whilst in
utero, subjected the mother, by some sort of inoculation, to organic
or dynamic modifications, the elements of which had been transmitted
to the embryo by the father, and the mother would then retain the
impress permanently. In support of this hypothesis, the author reminds
us that certain diseases, such as old and non-contagious syphilis,
may be communicated to the mother by the mediation of the fœtus.
He further observes that in horses, oxen, sheep, and dogs, a female,
impregnated for the first time by a male, may for a long time preserve
a certain disposition to produce with another male young resembling the
first, a phenomenon well-known to breeders. He finally remarks that a
mare, having given birth to a mule, conceives subsequently with greater
difficulty from horses than from asses, and he connects these instances
with those of the native women who once impregnated by a white man,
become by it barren in their connexion with men of their own race
without, however, losing the capacity of becoming again pregnant by
white men.
I cannot accept this adventurous theory which Dr. Carpenter was nearly
ready to adopt, but which he has discarded in a postscript, owing
to fresh information which he received while his article went to
press.[78] The influence of the first male upon the succeeding progeny
has been many times rendered evident by the crossing of animals of the
same race, and even of different species.[79] The existence of such
a phenomenon in the human species is, at any rate, still doubtful,
and the connexion of facts of this kind, with Strzelecki’s assertion,
is yet more questionable. We must also observe that Strzelecki, in
pointing out the barrenness of savage women who have cohabited with the
Whites, does not merely speak of such who have produced Mulattoes, but
applies equally to those women who had not given birth to any children;
and if Mr. Harvey had taken the exact meaning of the text, he might,
perhaps, not have advanced his theory.
The observations of M. de Strzelecki, though made in various regions,
have been published in a work on Australia. It was thought that he
spoke especially of the native women of New South Wales, and it was
more from that country that more information was expected on that
subject. Mr. Heywood Thomson, a surgeon of the English navy, took up
the question, and sent to the _Edinburgh Monthly Journal_ an article
tending to refute Strzelecki’s assertion. This article effectively
shows that Strzelecki’s opinion was far too general. The author states,
that he had known a colonist of the Macquarie river, who communicated
to him the following fact:--One of his convict servants had a child
born him by an Australian woman, who subsequently returned to her own
tribe, had then a second child by a native man. Mr. Thomson states,
that other instances of the kind had occurred in the colony; and
he strikes a fatal blow at Mr. Harvey’s theory by adding, that the
Australian women who have for a certain time cohabited with the Whites,
are not more prolific with them than with the natives. But though Mr.
Thomson has endeavoured to prove that the cohabitation with Europeans
does not necessarily render Australian women barren with men of their
own race, he acknowledges that such a result is very common. He admits
it as a fact which cannot be contested,[80] and considers it so certain
that he tries to explain it, by attributing it to the following
causes:--
1. The European who has cohabited with an Australian woman, sends
her away after the lapse of a few years, when she is often not young
enough to produce children, as Australian women rarely conceive after
the thirtieth year. 2. The cohabitation with a European modifies
the constitution of the savage woman, who smokes, and is frequently
intoxicated during that time. 3. Having not lost the habits of savage
life, she returns to her tribe, where she now has some difficulty to
support fatigues and irregularities, which diminishes her fecundity. 4.
Finally, when she becomes a mother, and the fatigues of maternity are
added to her other troubles, she tries to escape them by infanticide.
It is to the united effect of these causes that the author attributes
the rarity of children born of Australian native women who have
returned to their tribes.
It is very significant when an author, despite of himself, confirms
by his theories, facts which he had undertaken to disprove. I will
not allude again to the story of infanticide, a hundred times more
improbable here, than in cases where the child had been begotten
by a European. Though it follows, from Mr. Thomson’s article, that
Strzelecki’s assertion was too general, it results at the same time
that the assertion was well founded. But this is not the place to
search for the explanation of a phenomenon which, despite the efforts
of Mr. Harvey, does not touch hybridity. If I have dwelt on the
fact, it is because the polemics raised by Strzelecki’s observations
have incontestably established that the _cohabitation_ of Whites and
native Australian women is very common in Australia; and we do not
comprehend under this name the sexual intercourse which is accidental
and transitory, such as occurs when the women come to market, but the
cohabitation under the same roof, and prolonged during several months,
and even years. The scarcity of Australian Mulattoes can thus be
attributed neither to the rarity nor to the transitory nature of sexual
intercourse; neither can we admit, until we are better informed, that
the relative sterility of such crossings is the consequence of some
homœogenesic defect between the two races.
In studying the cases preceding those just mentioned, we have put
the question whether Mulattoes of the first degree were, between
themselves, indefinitely prolific, to answer which we had to analyse
a certain number of facts. In the present case the facts fail us, and
the question can only be examined theoretically. No traveller or author
has spoken of the alliance of Australian Mulattoes between themselves,
nor of their recrossing on the parent stock. No writer has informed
us whether these Mulattoes are robustious, intelligent, vivacious,
or, on the contrary, weak, stupid, and short-lived. One thing appears
to me certain, that the number of young Mulattoes who die at an early
age, or who are not viable, must be relatively considerable, and this
may perhaps have given rise to the accusation of infanticide, which I
have already refuted. This defective progeny is also observed in the
crossings of certain species of animals but little homœogenesic;
and if it be true, as everything tends to establish, that the union
of the Whites and the Australian women is but little prolific, we
may suppose that Mulattoes sprung from such disparate unions, must
enter the category of inferior cross-breeds. Are they very prolific
between themselves? This seems not very probable, though we have no
experimental knowledge of it. It is even doubtful whether they are
very prolific with the Whites, for no one has mentioned the existence
of Quadroon Mulattoes, which might be as easily recognised as the
Quadroons of the Antilles. However small the number of hybrid women of
the first degree may be, these women ought to have produced with the
Whites, if they had been very prolific, a progeny which ought to have
become numerous in the population of a colony founded above seventy
years; for there can be no doubt that there, as everywhere, the woman
of colour selects by preference the alliance of men of a superior race.
I am far from advancing these suppositions as demonstrated truths.
I have studied and analysed all documents within my reach; but I
cannot be responsible for facts not ascertained by myself, and which
are too much in opposition to generally received opinions to be
admitted without strict investigation. I, therefore, earnestly draw
the attention of travellers, and especially of physicians resident in
Australia to this subject, the importance of which I have endeavoured
to point out. Until we obtain further particulars we can only reason
upon the known facts; but these, it must be admitted, are so numerous
and so authentic as to constitute if not a rigorous definitive
demonstration, at least a strong presumption in favour of the doctrines
of polygenists.
From the whole of our researches on the hybridity of the human race we
obtain the following results:--
1. That certain intermixtures are perfectly eugenesic.
2. That other intermixtures are in their results notably inferior to
those of eugenesic hybridity.
3. That Mulattoes of the first degree, issued from the union of the
Germanic (Anglo-Saxon) race with the African Negroes, appear inferior
in fecundity and longevity to individuals of the pure races.
4. That it is at least doubtful, whether these Mulattoes, in their
alliances between themselves, are capable of indefinitely perpetuating
their race, and that they are less prolific in their direct alliances
than in their recrossing with the parent stocks, as is observed in
paragenesic hybridity.
5. That alliances between the Germanic race (Anglo-Saxon) with the
Melanesian races (Australians and Tasmanians) are but little prolific.
6. That the Mulattoes sprung from such intercourse are too rare to
have enabled us to obtain exact particulars as to their viability and
fecundity.
7. That several degrees of hybridity, which have been observed in the
cross-breeds of animals of different species, seem also to occur in the
various crossings of men of different races.
8. That the lowest degree of human hybridity in which the
homœogenesis is so feeble as to render the fecundity of the first
crossing uncertain, is exhibited in the most disparate crossings
between one of the most elevated and the two lowest races of humanity.