_Subject._ Amalgamation.
_Gist._ "The crossing of the Negro race with the white has been
detrimental to its true progress and has contributed more than anything
else to the excessive and increasing rate of mortality from the most
fatal disease, as well as to its consequent inferior social efficiency
and diminishing power as a force in American national life."[40]
The importance of this proposition is apparent when we consider that the
Negroes in this country are a thoroughly mixed people. The pure African
type has been well nigh obliterated. It is pointed out also that the
mongrel progeny has been produced by illicit intercourse between the
white male and the black female. The moral and conservative qualities of
a race reside in its womanhood. The Negro people, then, have missed
these transmitted qualities. The author is either ignorant of or ignores
the large class of mixed Negroes who are the legitimate offspring of
colored parents, but would place the whole class under the ban of
bastardy.
After judicially balancing the testimony furnished by world-renowned
authorities upon the effect of race crossing, the author espouses one
side of the contention with all the ardor of a retained advocate.
Three points are sought to be established.
I. THE MULATTO IS PHYSICALLY INFERIOR TO BOTH PARENT RACES.
The opinions of examining surgeons during the civil war are quoted which
quite unanimously show that the Mulatto is strongly inclined to
consumption, scrofula, and vicious taints of blood.
The following table, made out on the basis of Gould's measurements, is
full of interest:
White. Black. Mulatto.
Weight 141.4 pounds. 144.6 pounds. 44.8 pounds.
Circumference chest 35.8 inches. 35.1 inches. 34.96 inches.
Capacity of lungs 184.7 cubic in. 163.5 cubic in. 158.9 cubic in.
Rate of respiration 16.4 per minute. 17.7 per minute. 19.0 per minute.
It appears from this table that in the most important vital organs and
functions the Mulatto is inferior to both parent stocks. This opinion
is almost or quite universal among competent authorities upon this
subject. And yet the last word of science has not been uttered on this
question. There is no subject in all the domain of social science which
offers a more interesting or more fruitful field for investigation. The
Freedmen's Hospital at Washington, and similar institutions elsewhere,
by prosecuting accurate and scientific methods of inquiry can throw much
light upon this subject.
2. THE MULATTO IS MORALLY INFERIOR TO THE BLACKS.
This alleged inferiority is attributable to the fact as well as to the
manner of generation. Strangely enough Mr. Hoffman does not employ the
statistics which would seem to bear out his suggestion. The eleventh
census shows that there were 10,377 pure and 3,218 mixed Negroes in
penitentiaries in 1890. Supposing that uniform methods of race-tests
were used throughout the census inquiry, this would show that while the
mixed Negroes constitute only 16 per cent of the total Negro population,
they furnished 30 percent of the penitentiary convicts. But these
figures cannot be relied upon since the census bureau acknowledges that
it has no definite method of determining the different shades of color
and grades of mixture among Negroes.
It is also alleged in proof of this proposition that illicit intercourse
between the races is carried on mainly with the Mulatto women. Can this
not be explained on grounds other than native depravity? The light-colored
Negro woman is made the victim of the lustful onslaught of the male
element of both races. She is placed between the upper and nether stress
of the vicious propensities of white and black men. And if her sins are
greater, is it not because her temptations are greater also? The
following quotation from a distinguished Southerner is significant;
"There was little improper intercourse between white men and Negresses
of the original type in the period before emancipation (after the
creation of the Mulatto class)."[41] Every time a Negro woman is
indicted on this score some white man is inculpated. The reproach hurled
against colored women from such sources reminds us very much of the
lines in Butler's Hudibras:
The selfsame thing they will abhor,
One way, and long another for.
3. THE MULATTO IS INTELLECTUALLY SUPERIOR TO THE BLACKS BUT INFERIOR TO
THE WHITES.
In substantiation of this proposition it is claimed that the greater
number of Negroes who have attained distinction have been those of mixed
blood. The truth of this statement must be conceded, and yet the cause
should not be overlooked. Leaving aside the doctrine of inheritance as a
debatable question, the initial advantage of the mixed over the pure
Negroes was considerable. Feelings of blood ties prompted many a slave
holder to deal kindly by his slave descendants, and often to liberate
them and give them a start in the race of life. That an infusion of
white blood quickens the energy and enlivens the disposition of the
progeny is probably true; but that it adds to the intellectual capacity
is far from a self-evident proposition. The Negroes who have shown any
unusual intellectual activity, in America at least, have usually been of
the purer type. Phyllis Wheatly, Benjamin Banneker, Ira Aldridge, Blind
Tom, Edward W. Blyden, and Paul Dunbar are illustrations of this
argument.
The investigation of Dr. Gould as to circumference of head and facial
angle are exhibited in the following table:
White. Mulatto. Black.
Circumference of head 22.1 inches. 22.0 inches. 21.9 inches.
Facial angle 72.0 deg. 69.2 deg. 68.8 deg.
A difference of one-tenth of an inch in head circumference and of
four-tenths of a degree in facial angle affords a very slender physical
basis on which to predicate intellectual superiority.
The author lays great stress upon the following table made out by Dr.
Hunt.
_Weight of the Brain of White and Colored Soldiers_.[42]
No. of cases. Degree of color. Weight of brain.
24 White 1424 grammes.
25 Three parts white 1390 "
47 Half white 1334 "
51 One-fourth white 1319 "
95 One-eighth white 1308 "
22 One-sixteenth white 1280 "
141 Pure Negro 1341 "
Twenty-four cases are taken to represent fifty million people, and the
law of averages thus obtained is confidently relied upon. Nor are we
informed as to what methods were employed to ascertain the exact
composition of blood of the 22 cases that are rated as one-sixteenth
white. But, supposing we accept this table, overlooking for the time
being the fact that the brain weight of one white person is taken as
typical of two million others, and also conceding the undisclosed method
of Dr. Hunt in detecting homeopathic dashes of white blood, does it
"clearly prove that there is an increase in the brain weight with an
increase in the proportion of white blood?" If this table shows anything
it is that the pure Negro and the Mulatto have about the same brain
weight and that they are both superior in this respect to all degrees of
mixture between them, but inferior to those of more than one-half white
blood.
But it is rather unusual at this late day to base intellectual capacity
upon the shape and size of skull. Investigations have shown that facial
angle and capacity of cranium and cephalic index afford no certain
criterion of thought power or susceptibility to culture. The latest word
on this subject is given by Prof. Ripley, in a series of articles on
"Racial Geography of Europe," in Appleton's Popular Science Monthly for
1897.
"An important point to be noted in this connection is that this shape of
the head seems to bear no direct relation to intellectual power or
intelligence. Posterior development of the cranium does not imply a
corresponding backwardness in culture.... Europe offers the best
refutation of the statement that the proportions of the head mean
anything intellectual.... In our study of the proportions of the head,
therefore, we are measuring merely race, and not intelligence in any
sense.... Equally unimportant to the anthropologist is the absolute size
of the head. It is grievous to contemplate the waste of energy when,
during our civil war, over one million of soldiers had their heads
measured in respect to this absolute size, in view of the fact that
today anthropologists deny any considerable significance attaching to
this characteristic. Popularly a large head with beetling eyebrows
suffices to establish a man's intellectual credit, but like all other
credit it is entirely dependent upon what lies on deposit
elsewhere."[43]
A still more renowned authority tells us: "The development of the
intellectual faculties of man is to a great extent independent of the
capacity of the cranium and the volume of the brain."[44]
The question of the relative intellectual capacity of the different
races is one of much speculative interest. I am giving the matter more
attention than it would seem to warrant, because the author makes the
supposed mental inferiority of the race the basis of the only practical
suggestion which he has to offer, viz: that all of our educational and
philanthropic endeavor so far has been based upon wrong principles, and
a radical change in this regard is demanded so as to bring the treatment
in harmony with the capabilities of the lower race. Several authorities
will be cited which, I think, will be more than sufficient to offset Mr.
Hoffman's insistent opinion.
"There are hundreds if not thousands of black men in this country who in
capacity are to be ranked with the superior persons of the dominant
race; and it is hard to say that in any evident feature of mind they
characteristically differ from their white fellow citizens."[45]
Prof. Shaler is himself a Southerner, a professor in Harvard University,
and a noted student of current problems.
"Granting the present inferiority of the Negro, we affirm that it has
never been proved; nor is there any good reason to suppose that he is
doomed forever to maintain his present relative position, or that he is
inferior to the white man in any other sense than as some white races
are inferior to others."[46]
"Yet the Negro children exhibit no intellectual inferiority; they make
just the same progress in the subjects taught as do the children of
white parents, and the deficiency they exhibit later in life is of quite
a different kind."[47]
Mr. Hoffman compels us once more to combat the arguments of the slave
holding class: that is, that the Negro is intellectually and morally an
inferior creature (they did not, however, affirm physical inferiority)
and that it is only by servile contact with the white race that his
nature can be improved. The progress along these lines which the race
has made even under the severest disadvantages is sufficient answer to
this argument.
If I'm designed yon lordling's slave,
By nature's law designed,
Why was an independent wish
E'er planted in my mind?
The Negro's intellectual and social environments hang as a millstone
about his neck; and when he is cast upon the sea of opportunity he is
reproached with everlasting inferiority because he does not swim an
equal race with those who are not thus fettered. We are reminded of the
barbarous Teutons in Titus Andronicus who, after pulling out the tongue
and cutting off the hands of the lovely Lavinia, upbraid her for not
calling for sweet water with which to wash her delicate hands.
No, no, Mr. Hoffman, the philanthropists have made no mistake. They have
proceeded on the supposition that the Negro has faculty for faculty and
power for power with the rest of his fellow men, and that his special
needs grow out of his peculiar condition. Any alteration in this policy
would violate the dictates both of science and humanity.
MIXED MARRIAGES.
The remainder of this rather long chapter is devoted to the number and
character of mixed marriages, with the conclusion that the number is on
the decrease and the character of one or both of the contracting parties
is usually unsavory, and that such unions can form no determining factor
in the ultimate solution of the problem.
A study of the fertility of such marriages and the physical, moral, and
intellectual stamina of the progeny would furnish valuable sociological
data.