1700 – 1800

“Francois Bellet, one of the founders of the Bordeaux Academy of Sciences, delivers a short “Dissertation on the Black Color of Ethiopians” to the members of the Academy’s institutional predecessor, the Academie des lyriques.
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“The anatomist Alexis Littré publishes Diverses observations anatomiques (Various Anatomical Observations), in which he describes his attempt to isolate the fluid contained in the rete mucosum. Though his efforts are unsuccessful, his research brings this supposed feature of African anatomy to the attention of a new generation of philosophes and naturalists. Source: Vertical section of epidermis and papillae of corium. From D.J. Cunningham. Textbook of Anatomy (New York, NY: William Wood and Co., 1903).
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“The first casta (lineage) paintings are made in Latin America. These depictions of various admixtures of Amerindians, Africans, and Spanish Whites feature up to sixteen individual portraits and serve to codify specific racialized categories of miscegenation, e.g., a Black and an Amerindian produce a Lobo. Source: Casta painting. 18th century. Oil on canvas. Tepotzotlán, Mexico, Museo Nacional del Virreinato.
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“Founding of the Académie Royale des Sciences, Belles-Lettres, et Arts de Bordeaux (Royal Society of Sciences, Literature, and the Arts of Bordeaux). Its patron, the Duc de La Force, endows a medal of 300 livres to be awarded to the winner of the Academy’s annual essay contest.
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“The Treaty of Utrecht ends the long War of the Spanish Succession. Trade with the Caribbean increases dramatically, ushering in a steady rise in the slave trade. Source: A first edition of the Treaty of Utrecht, 1713.
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“Passage of an edict by Philippe d’Orleans, regent of the French king Louis XV, effectively declaring slavery legal within France itself. The measure puts an end to the long-held principle of Free Soil, which supposedly liberated all enslaved people entering the kingdom. Source: Jean-Etienne Liotard, portrait of a Young Black Woman. After 1751. Pastel on blue paper. St. Louis Museum of Art.
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“François-Marie Arouet known by Voltaire, the French philosopher, historian, and writer, claims that the rete mucosum provides irrefutable evidence that Blacks and Whites are separate species (polygenesis) and that Blacks are an inferior type of human. Voltaire will later become an opponent of slavery, but he will maintain these same racist views. Source: Pastel of Voltaire, by Maurice Quintin de la Tour, 1736.
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“Carl Linnaeus, the Swedish botanist, publishes the first of many editions of his groundbreaking Systema Naturae (System of Nature), in which he breaks the genus homo into four geographical varieties, including africanus niger. In his 1758 of the Systema, he will add humoral tendencies and temperaments to the classification of what he now calls Homo sapiens. Source: image of Homo from Carolus Linnaeus, System Naturae, 1758.

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“ The Parlement of Bordeaux votes to accept a royal proclamation that tightens restrictions on the importation and use of slaves by their colonial masters while in France. Those masters found in violation of the proclamation’s terms must forfeit their slaves. This same proclamation nonetheless sanctions, under specific conditions, the presence of Africans on French soil. Source: Fort du Ha, palace, fortress and prison in Bordeaux.
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“Publication of Dissertation physique à l’occasion du nègre blanc (Physical Dissertation on the Occasion of the White Negro) by Pierre-Louis Moreau de Maupertuis. Considering the anomaly of white-skinned Blacks (albinos), Maupertuis holds that whiteness represents the primitive state of human skin. This theory is adopted by a number of naturalists as proof of degeneration. Source: C. Guttenberg, sculpt., after design by de Sève. An albino woman of African descent, with white instead of black skin. 1777.
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“Montesquieu publishes his groundbreaking essay De l’esprit des Lois (The Spirit of the Laws), in which he both castigates slavery through irony and puts forward a climate-based understanding of slavery. Source: Le Masurier. Black Slaves seated outside their house in Martinique. 1775. Paris, Ministère de l’Outre Mer, Paris, France.
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“Georges-Louis Leclerc, comte de Buffon publishes one of the most influential books of the eighteenth century, the Histoire naturelle (Natural History). A monogenist, Buffon plays an enormous role in disseminating the idea of degeneration caused by variations in climate, food, and lifestyle. Source: François-Hubert Drouais. 1753. Oil on canvas. Montbard, Musée Buffon.
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“The increasingly scientific study of anatomy is applied to the subject of race, most notably by Johann Friedrich Meckel of the University of Halle in Germany. Meckel claims to have detected a blackish color of the blood and brain in the bodies of dissected black subjects. Source: John Singleton Copley. Head of a Black Man. 1777-78. Oil. Detroit Museum of Art.
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“The Seven Years’ War (called the French and Indian War in North America) greatly curtails the slave trade in Bordeaux and other French seaports. Source: “British Resentment or the French fairly Coopt at Louisbourg.” Printed for T. Bowles in St. Pauls Church yard, London. Paris, Bibliotheque nationale.
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“David Hume, Scottish Enlightenment philosopher and essayist, publishes a compilation of his writings in Essays, Moral, Political and Literary. In the essay “Of National Characters,” he asserts that there are distinct species of men and that he believes Blacks are “naturally inferior to the [W]hites,” and incapable of producing their own culture. Source: Scipio Morehead, attrib. Phyllis Wheatley, Poems on Various Subjects Religious and Moral (London: A.Bell, 1773).
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“Anthony Benezet, a Philadelphia Quaker and abolitionist, publishes the first of his many antislavery works, “A Short Account of that Part of Africa Inhabited by the Negroes.” Benezet’s works influence both French and British antislavery movements. Some years later, Benezet helps found the first antislavery organization, the Society for the Relief of Free Negroes Unlawfully Held in Bondage. Source: Anthony Benezet Instructing Colored Children. From John Warner and Eliabeth G. Barber, Historical Poetical and Pictorial American Scenes, 1851.
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“ Petrus Camper, the Dutch comparative anatomist, zoologist, and surgeon, delivers a lecture entitled “On the Origin and Color of Blacks” in which he highlights the empirical difference between human varieties based on facial angles. Though Camper asserts that these superficial differences had no bearing on intelligence, the published version of his ideas will superficial differences had no bearing on intelligence, the published version of his ideas will be appropriated and reinterpreted by European naturalists interested in advancing a racialized phrenology. Source: Petrus Camper, Verhandeling van Petrus Camper over het natuurlijk verschil der wezenstrekken in menschen ... . (Utrecht: B. Wild and J. Altheer, 1791).
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“ Claude-Nicolas Le Cat, a surgeon from Rouen, announces that he has discovered a dark liquid substance during a human dissection which he calls aethiops (essentially, melanin). Following the assertions of the German anatomist Johann Friedrich Meckel, Le Cat suggests that this substance originates in the dark tissue of the black brain, where it flows out through the nerves to all parts of the body, including the skin. In his view, aethiops results from the interaction of sulfurous blood with the element mercury bound within the life spirit. This spurious discovery quickly becomes part of the era’s raciology. Source: Claude Nicolas Le Cat, Traité de la Couleur de la Peau Humaine en Général et de celle des Nègres en Particulier, 1765.
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“Cornelius de Pauw (1739–1799), Dutch philosopher and geographer, synthesizes the racializing notions found in the works of Barrère, Meckel, and Le Cat in his hugely influential Recherches Philosophiques sur les Américains (Philosophical Research on the Americans). De Pauw asserts that the degenerated character of the brain, blood, and semen of Blacks is such that their very being is pathological. Source: Frederick Timson I’Ons. Group of Xhosa women in conversation with Xhosa man, 1870s.

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“The first real attempts at pseudoscientific biometric theories are published. Early examples include Johann Caspar Lavater’s 1772 theory that a person’s physiognomy reveals his or her own inner character, and Franz Joseph Gall’s 1798 study of phrenology (craniological bumps), which supposedly determined the entire gamut of intellectual capacity and personality traits. Source: Phlegmatic and choleric (above), sanguine and melancholic (below). From Johann Casper Lavater, Physiognomische Fragmente zur Beförderung der Menschenkenntnis und Menschenliebe, 1775-1778. Engraving.
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“Bordeaux’s Royal Academy of Sciences announces two contests related to the health of Africans. The second one solicits insights into improving shipboard conditions during the Middle Passage, an issue of great practical and economic importance for the time. Source: David Martin. Dido Elizabeth Belle and Elizabeth Murray. 1778. Oil. Scone Palace, Perthshire, Scotland.

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“Judgment by Lord Mansfield in Somersett v. Stewart was taken to imply that slavery was illegal in England. The Somersett ruling led to the first abolition campaigns. Source: James Hayllar. Granville Sharp Rescues Jonathan Strong From His Owner, 1764. 1864. Oil. London, Victoria & Albert Museum.
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“Planter and slave owner Edward Long publishes his unapologetically racist History of Jamaica, in which he argues that “the White and the Negroe are two distinct species” as a justification for the enslavement of the latter by the former. Source: James Hakewill, A Picturesque Tour of the Island of Jamaica, from drawings made in the Years 1820 and 1821, 1825.
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“ The Scottish philosopher Henry Home, Lord Kames asserts in his Sketches of the History of Man that climate-based theories for the origins of different human types are false, and that the differences between human groups are so distinct that they must have come from different rootstocks. Kames also posits a conjectural history for humankind, according to which certain races or groups are associated with the stages of hunting, pasturage, agriculture, or commerce. This “stage theory” of humankind is also endorsed by fellow Scots Adam Smith, Adam Ferguson, William Robertson, and John Millar. Source: Nott and Gliddon, Indigenous Races of the Earth, 1857.

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“Johann Friedrich Blumenbach, German physician, anthropologist, comparative anatomist, and physiologist, publishes De generis humani varietate nativa (On the Natural Varieties of Mankind). Advancing a monogenetic theory of humankind grounded on physical anatomy, he nonetheless gives credence to the notion that humankind can be broken down into useful categories based on empirical data. Source: Johann Friedrich Blumenbach, De generis humani varietate nativa (Five Races of Mankind), 1795.


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“The American Revolution interrupts the slave trade. Source: Jean-Baptiste Le Paon, design; Noel Le Mire, engraver. From Conclusion de la campagne de 1781 en Virginie. Le Marquis de la Fayette. Lafayette with his black servant (possibly James Armistead Lafayette). Engraving. 1783 or after. After oil painting by Le Paon, ca.1783, Lafayette College (formerly collection of Lafayette).
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“Rise of the polygenist view of human origin. Although the argument for the descent of human varieties from separate ancestors has already been proposed, only in the latter part of the eighteenth century does the theory of polygenesis begin to challenge the monogenist belief in a single avatar for humanity. Polygenesis will soon become a useful tool for the proslavery lobby in the United States. Source: Z.T.Zealy. Renty Congo (Renty Taylor, also known as Renty Thompson or Papa Renty. Ca. 1775–after 1865). 1850. Daguerreotype.
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“ The Englishman Sir William Jones pioneers a linguistic theory explaining how Noah’s progeny moved across the globe. Historical linguistics will later flourish in Germany. Source: Ethiopian biblical manuscript. 20th century. University of Oregon, Museum of Natural and Cultural History.
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“This period of relative peace in Europe allows the exponential rise in the slave trade in Bordeaux and Europe in general. In 1789 alone, thirty-four ships left the harbor of Bordeaux, bound for the slave pens of the African coast. Source: Plan, profil et distribution du navire La Marie Séraphique de Nantes. Nantes, Musée d’histoire de Nantes. 1769. Watercolor.
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“A three-way exchange of ideas on race between Kant, Johann Gottfried Herder, and Georg Forster is provoked by Herder’s Ideen zur Philosophie der Geschichte der Menschheit (Ideas toward a Philosophy of the History of Mankind). Source: William Blake. “Europe Supported By Africa and America.” Hand-colored engraving. From John Gabriel Stedman, Narrative of a Five Years’ Expedition against the Revolted Negroes of Surinam in Guiana on the Wild Coast of South America; from the Year 1772 to 1777. . . . 1796.
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“ Samuel Thomas Soemmerring, a German anatomist, theorizes in his Ueber die köperlich Verschiedenheit des Negers vom Europäer (On the Physical Differences between the European and the Negro) that brain size is directly related to the thickness of the nerves attached to the rest of the body. In his view, these spurious anatomical differences determine if a race is low-or high-functioning. (Source: Base of the brain, showing the optic chiasma, cerebellum, olfactory bulbs, etc. From Andreas Vesalius, De Humani corporis fabrica Libri septem (Basel: ex officina Ioannis Oporini, 1543).
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“ Christoph Meiners, an anatomist at the University of Göttingen, publishes Grundriß der Geschichte der Menschheit (Fundamentals of the History of Mankind), one of several works in which he puts forward both a racial hierarchy and a polygenist theory of humankind. It is he who coins the description Caucasian in this year, which Blumenbach later popularizes. Meiners will later become one of the spiritual ancestors of the Nazi movement. Source: Christoph Meiners. Johann Heinrich Tischbein the Younger. Ca. 1772. Oil on canvas. Halberstadt, Gleimhaus in Halberstadt.
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“The Society for Effecting the Abolition of the Slave Trade forms in London. Several months later, the French equivalent, the Societe des amis des Noirs, is also established. Source: Frontispiece. From Benjamin Sigismond Frossard, La cause des esclaves nègres et des habitants de la Guinée (Lyon, 1789).
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“Beginning of revolts in Saint-Domingue (Haiti). Source: “Toussaint Louverture Chef des Noirs Insurgés de Saint Domingue.” Ca. 1802. Engraving. (Paris: Chez Jean rue Jean de Beauvais, 1802). London, Victoria & Albert Museum.
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“First motion to end the slave trade defeated in the British Parliament. Source: “Am I Not a Man and a Brother.” Jasper ware cameo. Josiah Wedgwood, maker. William Hackwood or Henry Webber, designer.
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“Publication in English of The Works of Professor [Petrus] Camper on the Connexion between the Science of Anatomy and the Arts of Drawing, Painting, Statuary etc., containing Camper’s hugely influential anatomical charts of the “racial angle,” which compare facial features from the Apollo Belvedere to the ape. Source: Proportional drawings of skulls and facial features. From Petrus Camper, The Works of the late Professor Camper on The Connexion [sic] between the Science of Anatomy and The Arts of Drawing, Painting, Statuary &c. &c, 1794). Etching and engraving.
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“During the French Revolution, slavery is legally abolished in the French colonies by a decree of “Universal Emancipation” issued by the National Assembly of the revolutionary government. The following year the national constitution codifies the emancipation of French slaves. Source: Anne-Louis Girodet de Roussy-Trioson. Jean-Baptiste Belley, member of the National Convention. 1797. Oil on canvas. Palace of Versailles.
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“In An Account of the Regular Graduation of Man, Charles White, reinterpreting Petrus Camper’s charts, suggests that Africans’ supposedly lowly nature situates them in the “Great Chain of Being” at a point just after the great apes. The notion of a concatenation of “races” will continue unabated during the nineteenth century. Source: Monkey of Angola. Hand-colored engraving. Ca. 1754. From
Antoine-François Prévost, Histoire général des voyages (Paris, 1746-59)
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