Read Online Ebony and Ivy by Craig Steven Wilder - Free Book Online
Authors: Craig Steven Wilder
Ads: Link
that Princetown
College is burnt to the ground, tis supposed by some
of the students.
âADRIANA BOUDINOT
Part II
Race and the Rise of the American College
The number of purely white people in the world is
proportionably very small. All Africa is black or tawny;
Asia chiefly is tawny; America (exclusive of the new
comers) wholly so. ⦠And while we are, as I may call
it, scouring our planet, by clearing America of woods,
and so making this side of our globe reflect a brighter
light to the eyes of inhabitants in Mars or Venus, why
should we, in the sight of superior beings, darken its
people? Why increase the sons of Africa, by planting
them in America, where we have so fair an opportunity,
by excluding all blacks and tawnys, of increasing
the lovely white and red?
âBENJAMIN FRANKLIN, âOBSERVATIONS
CONCERNING THE INCREASE OF MANKIND
AND THE PEOPLING OF COUNTRIESâ (1751)
Look round you! behold a country, vast in extent,
merciful in its climate, exuberant in its soil, the seat
of Plenty, the garden of the Lord! behold it given to
us and to our posterity, to propagate Virtue, to cultivate
the useful Arts, and to spread abroad the pure evangelical
Religion of Jesus! behold Colonies founded in
it! Protestant Colonies! free Colonies! British Colonies!
behold them exulting in their Liberty; flourishing in
Commerce; the Arts and Sciences planted in them.
âPROVOST WILLIAM SMITH,
THE CHRISTIAN
SOLDIERâS DUTY
(1757)
I am very sorry to hear by the publick Papers that the
Indian War is not at an End. I can not conceive what
it is these People are aiming at, but I am afraid, we
ourselves are not intirely blameless.
âSAMUEL BARD, EDINBURGH UNIVERSITY,
TO DR. JOHN BARD, NEW YORK, 1764
Chapter 7
âOn the Bodily and Mental Inferiority of the Negroâ
Institutionalizing Race in the American Academy
A bastardy case in New York City,
Commissioners of the Almshouse v. Alexander Whistelo, a Black Man
(1808), reveals the broad influence of the popular science of raceâthe social consumption of academic theories about human variationâand the political vulnerability of scientific research. Ultimately, the
Whistelo
trial was about much more than paternity. The court heard from an impressive number of experts, and it engaged profound questions, including the morality of slavery. The judges required answers to the complex issue of the operation of race: how color and its perceived qualities transferred across generations, when and why racial characteristics manifested, and how race shaped the individual and how it behaved in larger populations. They relied upon science to access the explanatory power of race, despite the fact that the testimony and deliberations exposed doubts about the reliability of this knowledge. The witnesses belonged to royal academies in Britain. They had founded medical programs, scientific societies, and professional associations in the United States. They held professorships at a cluster of American universities and had earnedundergraduate and advanced degrees from the best universities in Europe and the United States. Those credentials and affiliations signaled the institutionalization of medicine and science in the American academy. The process of establishing medical and science programs at American universities brought scientific research under the financial control of the commercial elite and ultimately domesticated science.
Whistelo
was a modern trial. The trial uncovered a scientific academy building a new intellectual order upon divisive, unequal, and brutal social relations. The medical witnesses used the proceedings to advance the social and intellectual authority of science. The judges deferred to their expertise. But the paths that the experts took to show the value and power of science were also the paths through which science got deployed in politics. The expansion of the northern and southern academies in the decades before
College is burnt to the ground, tis supposed by some
of the students.
âADRIANA BOUDINOT
Part II
Race and the Rise of the American College
The number of purely white people in the world is
proportionably very small. All Africa is black or tawny;
Asia chiefly is tawny; America (exclusive of the new
comers) wholly so. ⦠And while we are, as I may call
it, scouring our planet, by clearing America of woods,
and so making this side of our globe reflect a brighter
light to the eyes of inhabitants in Mars or Venus, why
should we, in the sight of superior beings, darken its
people? Why increase the sons of Africa, by planting
them in America, where we have so fair an opportunity,
by excluding all blacks and tawnys, of increasing
the lovely white and red?
âBENJAMIN FRANKLIN, âOBSERVATIONS
CONCERNING THE INCREASE OF MANKIND
AND THE PEOPLING OF COUNTRIESâ (1751)
Look round you! behold a country, vast in extent,
merciful in its climate, exuberant in its soil, the seat
of Plenty, the garden of the Lord! behold it given to
us and to our posterity, to propagate Virtue, to cultivate
the useful Arts, and to spread abroad the pure evangelical
Religion of Jesus! behold Colonies founded in
it! Protestant Colonies! free Colonies! British Colonies!
behold them exulting in their Liberty; flourishing in
Commerce; the Arts and Sciences planted in them.
âPROVOST WILLIAM SMITH,
THE CHRISTIAN
SOLDIERâS DUTY
(1757)
I am very sorry to hear by the publick Papers that the
Indian War is not at an End. I can not conceive what
it is these People are aiming at, but I am afraid, we
ourselves are not intirely blameless.
âSAMUEL BARD, EDINBURGH UNIVERSITY,
TO DR. JOHN BARD, NEW YORK, 1764
Chapter 7
âOn the Bodily and Mental Inferiority of the Negroâ
Institutionalizing Race in the American Academy
A bastardy case in New York City,
Commissioners of the Almshouse v. Alexander Whistelo, a Black Man
(1808), reveals the broad influence of the popular science of raceâthe social consumption of academic theories about human variationâand the political vulnerability of scientific research. Ultimately, the
Whistelo
trial was about much more than paternity. The court heard from an impressive number of experts, and it engaged profound questions, including the morality of slavery. The judges required answers to the complex issue of the operation of race: how color and its perceived qualities transferred across generations, when and why racial characteristics manifested, and how race shaped the individual and how it behaved in larger populations. They relied upon science to access the explanatory power of race, despite the fact that the testimony and deliberations exposed doubts about the reliability of this knowledge. The witnesses belonged to royal academies in Britain. They had founded medical programs, scientific societies, and professional associations in the United States. They held professorships at a cluster of American universities and had earnedundergraduate and advanced degrees from the best universities in Europe and the United States. Those credentials and affiliations signaled the institutionalization of medicine and science in the American academy. The process of establishing medical and science programs at American universities brought scientific research under the financial control of the commercial elite and ultimately domesticated science.
Whistelo
was a modern trial. The trial uncovered a scientific academy building a new intellectual order upon divisive, unequal, and brutal social relations. The medical witnesses used the proceedings to advance the social and intellectual authority of science. The judges deferred to their expertise. But the paths that the experts took to show the value and power of science were also the paths through which science got deployed in politics. The expansion of the northern and southern academies in the decades before
Similar Books
