The Skull Measurer's Mistake: And Other Portraits of Men and Women Who Spoke Out Against Racism

189 Pages·1997·5.33 MB·English

by  Sven Lindqvist

The Skull Measurer's Mistake
Also by Sven Lindqvist
"Exterminate All the Brutes":
One Man's Odyssey into the Heart ofDarkness and the
Origins ofEuropean Genocide
The
Skull Measurer's
Mistake
And Other Portraits of Men and Women
Who Spoke OutAgainst Racism
Sven Lindqvist
Translated from the Swedish by Joan Tate
The New Press
NewY ork
© Sven Lindqvist I995.English translation© I997 byThe New Pr:ess.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form
without written permission from the publisher.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Lindqvist, Sven
[Antirasister. English]
The skull measurer's mistake: and other portraits of men and women who
spoke out against racism I Sven Lindqvist; translated from the Swedish by
Joan Tate.
p. em.
Includes bibliographical references.
ISBN I-56584-363-0
I. Racism-History 2. Race relations-History. I. Title.
HTI507.L56 I997
305.8-dc2I 96-40902
CIP
First published in English by Albert Bonniers ForlagAB, Stockholm
Published in the United States byThe New Press, NewY ork
Distributed byWW Norton & Company, Inc., NewY ork
Established in I990 as a major alternative to the large, commercial publish
ing houses, The New Press is a nonprofit American book publisher.
The New Press is operated editorially in the public interest, rather than
for private gain; it is committed to publishing in innovative ways works of
educational, cultural, and community value that, despite their intellectual
merits, might not normally be commercially viable. The New Press's edito
rial offices are located at the City University ofNewYork.
The New Press is grateful for support for this publication from the Swedish
Institute.
Book design by AnnAntoshak
Production managell?-ent by Kim Waymer
Printed in the United States ofA merica
9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 I
To Clara, for whom this book was written.
Contents
3 Preface 75 I2. Exterminating People
5 Introduction Is Wrong
Langfield Ward, 1874
10 I. The Discovery ofPrejudices
Benjamin Franklin, 1764 81 I3. "Anti-Semitism, the
monster ofn ational emotion"
16 2. "Whether a Slave, by
Theodor Mommsen, 188o
coming into England,
becomes free?" 90 I4. A Century ofDishonor
Granville Sharp, 1772 Helen Hunt, 1881
22 3. "Why not?" 99 I5.The Silent South
Georg Lichtenberg, 1778 George Cable, 1885
27 4· The Struggle Against the 106 I6.White Natives ofEurope
Slave Trade Begins William Babington, 1895
James Ramsay, 1784 113 I7. How Perilous Is the
31 5. For Jews and Blacks Yellow Peril?
Henri Gregoire, 1789 Jacques Novicow, 1897
37 6. Doctqr in Africa 119 I8. "The dying negro"
Thomas Winterbottom, 1803 Joseph Conrad, 1897
42 7. The Skull Measurer's Mistake 131 I9. "Equality or massacre"
Friedrich Tiedemann, 1837 Anatole Leroy-Beaulieu, 1897
48 8. Poet Astray 140 2o.The Miss Marple of
William Howitt, 1838 Anthropology
Mary Kingsley, 1897
53 9.TheThree Races ofAmerica
Alexis deTocqueville, 1840 146 2I. For a Democratic South
Africa
61 ro.The Myth of the
Olive Schreiner, 1897
Anglo-Saxon Master Race
Charles Anderson, 1850 154 22. Denied Heritage
Theophilus Scholes, 1899
67 II. Let the Chinese Come!
Raphael Pumpelly, 1870 161 Sequence ofEvents
167 Bibliography
The Skull Measurer's Mistake

Preface
THE HISTORY OF racism is not only about racists. Throughout
history there have also been people who have seen through
the errors of racists and protested against their abuses. This
book is about some of those people.
My selection is of necessity subjective. I have not striven
for completeness, and I make no claim to have made any
scholarly discovery. I have simply read works by eighteenth
and nineteenth-century antiracists and their opponents, as well
as some important works in scholarly literature on racism and
antiracism and attempted to chronicle some of those struggles.
The antiracists I pr~sent here are not free of the prejudices
of their times; they share some, while combating others. The
fact that they are all Europeans or North Americans is not
because antiracism does not exist in, for instance, the Far East
or the Arab world, but is a result of my own ignorance.
My aim-it goes without saying-is not to give an over
all view ofEurope and its relations with its minorities and the
rest of the world. My aim is quite simply to remind readers of
some antiracists, who today are often forgotten, and as far as I
Preface
know have never been discussed together. I also hope to show
those who are today fighting against racism something of the
long and proud tradition to which they belong.
Sven Lindqvist
4