Anglo-Saxonism in the 19th century

Anglo-Saxonism is a cultural belief system developed by British and American intellectuals, politicians, and academics in the 19th century. Racialized Anglo-Saxonism contained both competing and intersecting doctrines, such as

Predominantly a product of certain Anglo-American societies, and organisations of the era:[1]

An important racial belief system in late 19th- and early 20th-century British and US thought advanced the argument that the civilization of English-speaking nations was superior to that of any other nations because of racial traits and characteristics inherited from the Anglo-Saxon invaders of Britain.

In 2017,

In terminology, Anglo-Saxonism is by far the most commonly used phrase to describe the historical ideology of rooting a Germanic racial identity, whether Anglo-Saxon, Norse, or Teutonic, into the concept of the English, Scottish or British nation, and subsequently founded-nations such as the United States, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand.^{[citation needed]}

In both historical and contemporary literature however, Anglo-Saxonism has many derivations, such as the commonly used phrase Teutonism or Anglo-Teutonism,^[5] which can be used as form of catch-all to describe American or British Teutonism and further extractions such as English or Scottish Teutonism. It is also occasionally encompassed by the longer phrase Anglo-Saxon Teutonism, or shorter labels Anglism or Saxonism, along with the most frequently used term of Anglo-Saxonism itself.^{[citation needed]}

American medievalist Allen Frantzen credits historian L. Perry Curtis's use of Anglo-Saxonism as a term for "an unquestioned belief in Anglo-Saxon 'genius'" during this period of history.^[6] Curtis has pointed toward a radical change from adulation of Anglo-Saxon institutions in the 16th and 17th centuries towards something more racial and imperialist.^[7] Historian Barbara Yorke, who specializes in the subject,^[8] has similarly argued that the earlier self-governance oriented Anglo-Saxonism of Thomas Jefferson's era had by the mid-19th century developed into "a belief in racial superiority".^[9]

According to Australian scholar Helen Young, the ideology of Anglo-Saxonism was "profoundly racist" and influenced authors such as J. R. R. Tolkien and his fictional works into the 20th century.^[10] Similarly, Marxist writer Peter Fryer claimed that "Anglo-Saxonism was a form of racism that originally arose to justify the British conquest and occupation of Ireland".^[11] Some scholars believe the Anglo-Saxonism championed by historians and politicians of the Victorian era influenced and helped to spawn the Greater Britain Movement of the mid-20th-century.^[12] In 2019, the International Society of Anglo-Saxonists decided to change its name due to the potential confusion of their organization's name with racist Anglo-Saxonism.^[13]

At the passing of the Anglo-Saxonism era, progressive intellectual Randolph Bourne's essay Trans-National America reacted positively to integration ("We have needed the new peoples"), and while mocking the "indistinguishable dough of Anglo-Saxonism" in the context of very early 20th-century migration to the United States,^[14] Bourne manages to express an anxiety at the American melting pot theory.^[15]

Origins

Early references

In 1647, English MP John Hare, who served during the

Many historians and political scientists in Britain and the United States supported it in the 19th century. The theory supposed that American and British democracy and institutions had their roots in Teutonic peoples, and that Germanic tribes had spread this "germ" within their race from ancient Germany to England and on to North America. Advocacy in Britain included the likes of John Mitchell Kemble, William Stubbs, and Edward Augustus Freeman. Within the U.S., future president Woodrow Wilson, along with Albert Bushnell Hart and Herbert Baxter Adams were applying historical and social science in advocacy for Anglo-Saxonism through the theory.^[1] In the 1890s, under the influence of Frederick Jackson Turner, Wilson abandoned the Teutonic germ theory in favor of a frontier model for the sources of American democracy.^[17]

Ancestry and racial identity

Germanic and Teutonic

Anglo-Saxonism of the era sought to emphasize Britain's cultural and racial ties with Germany, frequently referring to

Edward Augustus Freeman, a leading Anglo-Saxonist of the era, promoted a larger Northern European identity, favorably comparing civilizational roots from "German forest" or "Scandinavian rock" with the cultural legacy of ancient Greece and Rome.^[21] American scholar Mary Dockray-Miller expands on this concept to suggest that pre-World War I Anglo-Saxonism ideology helped establish the "primacy of northern European ancestry in United States culture at large".^[2]

Lowland Scottish

During the 19th century in particular, Scottish people living in Lowland Scotland, near the

Thomas Carlyle, himself a Scot, was one of the earliest notable people to express a "belief in Anglo-Saxon racial superiority".^[26] Historian Richard J. Finlay has suggested that the Scots National League, which campaigned for Scotland to separate from the United Kingdom, was a response or opposition to the history of "Anglo-Saxon teutonism" embedded in some Scottish culture.^[27]

Mythology and religions

Anglo-Saxonism was largely aligned with Protestantism, generally perceiving Catholics as outsiders, and was orientated as an ideology in opposition to other "races", such as the "Celts" of Ireland and "Latins" of Spain.^[28]

A persistent "Anglo-Saxonist" idea, Albert Venn Dicey believed in the creation of a shared citizenship between Britons and Americans, and the concept of cooperation, even federation, of those from the "Anglo-Saxon" race.^[30]

See also

• Albion's Seed
• Anglosphere
• British Israelism
• Englishry
• Our Island Story
• White Anglo-Saxon Protestants

References