Caucasian

“ Assuredly the world has never witnessed any experiment of so gigantic a nature as this immense fusion of the Caucasian race now going on before our eyes in North America. One asks oneself, with feelings of dread, what is to be the result? Is it to eliminate from the human race the evil habits of each nationality, and to preserve in the new one the noble characteristics of all? ”

“ How different has it been with the other great races we find in this country! The Caucasian, starting from the plateaus of Central Asia, has in turn inoculated all the great empires of the world with it civilization. The Brahmins of India, the founders of the Chinese Empire, the greatness of Babylon and of Ninevah, the glory of Tyre and of Sidon, the pride of Egypt, the wealth of Carthage, and the power of Rome, in fact all the civilizations, as you follow the Caucasian tribes westward through Germany, France, England, and to this country, are owing to the great Arian or Teutonic stock. ”

“ In short, there is not nor has there ever been either a Caucasian or an Indo-European race, but there was once, thousands of years ago, an original Aryan race long since vanished into dim memories of the past. ”

“ If the best Negro in the land is the social equal of the best Caucasian, then it will be hard to prove that the lowest White is higher than the lowest Black; the principle of division is lost, and complete social equality is established. ”

“ Of all races, the Caucasian has hitherto shown the most of this instinct of progress, and, though perhaps the youngest of all, has advanced furthest in the development of the human faculties, and in the acquisition of power over the material world; it has already won the most welfare, and now makes the swiftest progress. ”

“ Under no circumstances could a colored man, of whatever rank or grade of intellectual power, in any respect, for a single instant overstep the gulf which separated him from the Caucasian, however humble, impoverished, or degraded the latter might be. This rendered easy and natural the establishment of other social grades and ideas, which tended to separate still farther the Northern from the Southern social system. ”

“ Later Expansions.—The Caucasian race has now spread, through colonization, over the whole world, but its proper region is Europe, western Asia, and the northern strip of Africa Nine-tenths of the people of Europe belong to the Caucasian family, the other tenth consisting of the Turks, the Magyars (in Hungary) , the Finns, the Laplanders, and the tribe called Samoieds in the extreme northeast of European [276] Russia. In Asia, the Caucasians include the Arabs, the Persians, the Afghans, and the Hindus. ”

“ Not only did the Caucasian show himself in every extreme of costume, from the most exquisite top-hatted dandy to the red-shirted miner, but there were also to be found all the picturesque and unknown races of the earth, the Chinese, the Chileño, the Moor, the Turk, the Mexican, the Spanish, the Islander, not to speak of ordinary foreigners from Russia, England, France, Belgium, Germany, Italy, and the out-of-the-way corners of Europe. ”

“ So far as we can make out, the savant has deceived himself by conjuring with the words "people" and "race." The question was, whether the Caucasian, "the white race," the great civilization-building race, in any or in all of its "peoples," is superior to the "races" African, Australian, and the like, that have produced no civilizations? If not, "why, then, did the white race alone develop a civilization which is sweeping the whole world, etc.?" ”

“ Their traits and geographical location have gained for the Caucasians the credit of being the oldest as well as the purest type of the white race, which indeed has been often called the “Caucasian” race. ”

“ Are they more obscure, more aberrant than are the relations between the species of man? Examine the high physical development of the most intellectual Caucasian; trace down the line to the diminutive and ill-formed cannibal savage of Africa, the habits and mental development of whom would seem rather allied to the lower orders of animals than to the Caucasian! ”

“ Again,—as among people of different races, the Malay and the American, the African and the Caucasian,—the diversity is very wide. And these people are just as different in their mental characteristics as in their physical constitution. ”

“ The principal feature which appears to me to characterise the Caucasian race, to raise it immeasurably above all other races, is the power that many of its male members have of advancing the horizon of science, of penetrating beyond the existing limits of knowledge—in a word, the power of scientific discovery. ”

“ Taken in its literal sense, it might be construed to mean that all men are created equal in every respect, but does any one believe, or will any one ever believe, that the native Congo, the Hottentot or the Australian negro, is the equal, mentally, physically and morally, of the Caucasian? ”

“ Again, the Caucasian variety of man presents the highest physical development of the human family; and as we depart either to the north or south, from the latitude assumed as the origin of the human race in Asia, we meet with a lower and lower type until at the north we encounter the Esquimaux, and at the south the Bosjesman and the Tierra Fuegian. ”

“ At least five distinct races are, as we know, universally recognized by ethnographers, — namely, the yellow or Asiatic race, the brown or Malays, the copper-colored or American-Indian, the negro or African, and,the Caucasian or white race. ”

“ Yet of such varied hues were they, that the most profound ethnologist would be perplexed to decide whether the man should be classed among the Caucasian, Mongolian, Malay, Indian, or Negro race, or whether he was a hybrid compound of all five. ”

“ That there have been some great and noble specimens of humanity among the African race, for example, no one can deny; but that there is a marked, and fixed, and permanent constitutional [page 37] difference between them and the Caucasian race seems evident from this fact, that for two thousand years each has held its own continent, undisturbed, in a great degree, by the rest of mankind ”

“ As a thing, an animal, a mere existence, or as the servant of his desire and instrument of his advancement, the Southern Caucasian had no antipathy to the colored race. As one to serve, to nurse, to minister to his will and pleasure, he appreciated and approved of the African to the utmost extent.
7. Every exercise of manly right, sentiment, or inclination, on the part of the negro, was rigorously repressed. To attempt to escape was a capital crime if repeated once or twice; to urge others to escape was also capitally punishable ”

“ For the similarity of suffering has produced in all lands where whites rule colored races a certain similarity of sentiment, viz.: a racial revulsion of racial feeling. The peoples of those lands begin to feel and realize that they are so subjected because they are members of races condemned as “inferior” by their Caucasian overlords. The fact presented to their minds is one of race, and in terms of race do they react to it. Put the case to any Negro by way of test and the answer will make this clear. ”

“ Yet the weakness of correlation of race faculty and civilization, except in the most general way, can be driven home to North Europeans and North Americans as soon as the relative parts played in culture history by the several Caucasian divisions are examined. On the ground of long continued lead in productivity, of having reared the largest portion of the structure of existing civilization, the Mediterranean branch of the Caucasian race would have to be awarded the palm over all others. ”

“ In some respects its moral and social qualities may be quite as desirable in a race of mankind as the corresponding qualities in white men; but in intellect, in fertility of resource, in that which furthers progress and renders society and civilization exalted and refined, it is not likely that any compound with a fraction of Caucasian blood in it, will be equal to the Caucasian himself. ”

“ The red men were so trained from infancy to this kind of amusement that they were experts, and held their own well against the pioneers, though it is well known that the Caucasian race, under similar surroundings and environments, surpasses all others in physical as well as mental attainments. ”

“ Whether the hand of races56 springing from the Caucasian stock presents a form essentially different from that of people originating from the Mongolian,—whether the hand of the Negro races resembles or differs from that of the American tribes, must be determined by the future investigations of intelligent and observing travellers. ”

“ Within a single generation prosperous colonies of Caucasians sprang up all along the coasts, and the silk hat and pink shirt, immemorial pioneers and promoters of civilization, penetrated the remotest fastnesses, spreading peace and plenty o’er a smiling land! ”

“ Caucasion in America.One of the most interesting of the many questions of large comprehensiveness which connect themselves with the penetration of the Mongolian race into America, which up till now it had been the fashion to regard as the inheritance of the Caucasians, is the relative capacity of labor possessed by both these two great races, who in the Western States of America have for the first time measured their mutual strength in friendly rivalry. ”

“ The diversities of type found even among Europeans, still more among other Caucasians, are remarkable and universally recognized. Norwegian and Italian, Russian and Spaniard, Cretan and Scot, can hardly be confounded, not to contrast Dane and Hindu, Teuton and Arab, Irishman and Jew. ”

“ Most of the discussion will necessarily be of the distinctions between Caucasians and Negroes, but as distinctions applicable to Mongolians and Indians arise, they will be mentioned to show that race consciousness is not confined to any one section or race. ”

“ Thus, tropical countries are inhabited by savage or semi-savage peoples, while the higher races are confined to temperate zones. The primary divisions of mankind, Ethiopic, Mongolic, Caucasic, were certainly differentiated in neolithic times, and these criteria had almost certainly occurred not consecutively in one area but simultaneously in several areas. A Negro was not metamorphosed into a Mongol, nor the latter into a White, but the several semi-simian precursors under varying environments developed into generalized Negro, generalized Mongol, generalized Caucasian. ”

“ The shuffle of their feet on the planks and the murmur of their many voices were punctuated by the klop, klop of hoofs and occasional shouts of laughter. All races of the earth seemed to be represented. It was like a Congress of the Nations at some great exposition. French, Germans, Italians, Russians, Dutchmen, British, were to be recognized and to be expected. But also were strange peoples—Turks, Arabs, Negroes, Chinese, Kanakas, East Indians, the gorgeous members of the Spanish races, and nondescript queer people to whom neither Nan nor Keith could assign a native habitat. ”

“ The range of complexion among mankind, beginning with the tint of the fair-whites of Northern Europe and the dark-whites of Southern Europe, passes to the brownish-yellow of the Malays, and the full-brown of American tribes, the deep-brown of Australians, and the black-brown of Negros. ”

“ We find upon the world's stage today eight distinctly differentiated races, in the sense in which History tells us the word must be used. They are, the Slavs of eastern Europe, the Teutons of middle Europe, the English of Great Britain and America, the Romance nations of Southern and Western Europe, the Negroes of Africa and America, the Semitic people of Western Asia and Northern Africa, the Hindoos of Central Asia and the Mongolians of Eastern Asia. There are, of course, other minor race groups, as the American Indians, the Esquimaux and the South Sea Islanders ”

“ The White Race and its Three Groups.—The so-called White Race embraces the historic nations. The chief peoples of this division of mankind fall into three groups,—the Hamitic, the Semitic, and the Aryan [3] or Indo-European. The members forming any one of these groups must not be looked upon as kindred in blood; the only certain bond uniting the peoples of each group is the bond of language. ”

“ Civilization, or the social condition of man, is the result and test of the qualities of every race. The benefit of this blood mixture, the negro is never to enjoy on this continent. In the South where he is raised, in the North, East, or West, it is all the same, no new blood is to be infused into his sluggish veins. ”

“ Between these two extremes is an almost innumerable variety of mixed races, each having its own peculiar designation, indicating the precise proportion of European, Indian, and negro blood in their veins, each marked with its own peculiar physical, intellectual, and moral characteristics; and each finding its chief boast in the nearness of its relation to the white race, and looking down with contempt upon those a shade darker than its own. ”

“ With this brief review of the essential difference between race and language or culture, we may return to a consideration of humanity in terms of essentially racial characters.
The world as a whole can be roughly mapped racially according to the most obvious human differentiation—namely, color: white, yellow, red, black, and brown. The white race at the present day dominates Europe, northern Asia in part, Australia, and North America as far south as Mexico, with outposts scattered all over the globe. Eastern Asia is yellow. Southern Asia and northern Africa are brown. ”

“ People talk of Caucasia as if it were a nation. I cannot tell you how many tribes there are; but for the most part they hate one another, and they speak about seventy languages, and cannot write any one of their own. ”

“ The Caucassian of today is now believed by men of science to be only a bleached negro. To be sure, it has taken thousands of years, and the ice-fields and cave dwellings of the North to do the bleaching. But man came originally from the Orient, the very womb of the earth from which only creatures of color come forth. ”