Josiah C. Nott
Josiah C. Nott | |
---|---|
Born | Josiah Clark Nott March 31, 1804 South Carolina, U.S. |
Died | March 31, 1873 Mobile, Alabama, U.S. | (aged 69)
Alma mater | University of Pennsylvania |
Occupation(s) | Surgeon, anthropologist |
Spouse | Sarah Cantey Deas (m. 1832) |
Josiah Clark Nott (March 31, 1804 – March 31, 1873) was an American surgeon,
Nott, who owned slaves, used his scientific reputation to defend the institution of slavery. He claimed that "the negro achieves his greatest perfection, physical and moral, and also greatest longevity, in a state of slavery".
Early life and education
Nott was born on March 31, 1804, in the U.S. state of
Career
Nott took up the theory that malaria and yellow fever were caused by parasitic infections with "animalcules" (microorganisms), earlier held by John Crawford.[3] In his 1850 Yellow Fever Contrasted with Bilious Fever he attacked the prevailing miasma theory.
He is often credited as being the first to apply the
Nott lost four of his children to yellow fever in one week in September 1853.[4]
Morton's followers, particularly Nott and
In their book, Nott and Gliddon argued that the races of mankind each occupied distinct zoological provinces and did not originate from a single pair of ancestors; they both believed God had created each race and positioned each race in separate geographic provinces. The doctrine of zoological provinces outlined in Types of Mankind did not allow for "superiority" of one type of race over another; each type was suited to its own province, and was superior within its own province. Nott claimed that because races were created in different provinces, that all race types must be of equal antiquity.[5] However Nott and other polygenists, such as Gliddon, believed that the biblical Adam means "to show red in the face" or "blusher"; since only light skinned people can blush, the biblical Adam must be of the Caucasian race.[6]
Nott persistently attacked the scientific basis of the
Nott claimed that the writers of the Bible had no knowledge of any races except themselves and their immediate neighbors and that it does not concern the whole of the earth's population. According to Nott, there are no verses in the Bible that support monogenism and that the only passage used by the monogenists Acts 17:26, "And [he] hath made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth, and hath determined the times before appointed, and the bounds of their habitation;"[7] was interpreted by them wrongly since the "one blood" of Paul's sermon included only the nations that he knew existed, which were local.[6]
In 1856, Nott hired Henry Hotze to translate Arthur de Gobineau's An Essay on the Inequality of the Human Races (1853–55), a founding text of "biological racism" that contrasts with Boulainvilliers (1658–1722)'s theory of races, and Nott provided an appendix with his most recent results. Gobineau subsequently complained that Hotze's translation had ignored his comments on "American decay generally and slaveholding in particular".[8]
In 1857, Nott and Gliddon again co-edited a book, Indigenous Races of the Earth.[9] That book built upon the arguments in Types of Mankind that linked anthropology with "scientific" studies of race to establish a supposed natural hierarchy of the races. The book included chapters from Louis Ferdinand Alfred Maury, J. Atkin Meigs, and Francis Polszky, letters from Louis Agassiz, Joseph Leidy, and A.W. Habersham.
Nott was a founder of the
Honors
A building at the University of Alabama was named Nott Hall in honor of Nott for his work at the predecessor Medical College of Alabama. It attracted controversy in 2016, with several student groups petitioning the building to be renamed or an educational plaque to be added because of Nott's open racism even by the standards of his era.[12][13] On August 5, 2020, his name was removed from the building, which was renamed Honors Hall.[14]
Evolving views on race of the Egyptians
While originally believing that the Egyptians were purely Caucasian, the authors of Types of Mankind (1854) modified their views based on excavations from earlier dynasties. In their view, the earliest Egyptians were neither Caucasian or Negro but an intermediate Negroid type.[15] However, they still believed that pure Negroes existed in Egypt only as slaves:
"But, while it must be conceded that Negroes, at no time within the reach even of monumental history, have inhabited any of Egypt, save as captives; it may, on the other hand, be equally true, that the ancient Egyptians did present a type intermediate between other African and Asiatic races; and, should such be proved to have been the case, the autocthones of Egypt must cease to be designated by the misnomer of "Caucasian."[16]
In the 19th century the word "Negro" is reserved only for people who display the highest degree of stereotypical black African characteristics, with the suffix oid in "Negroid" making the word literally mean "Negro like". [17] From the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica "It is most convenient, however, to refer to the dark-skinned inhabitants of this zone by the collective term of Negroids, and to reserve the word Negro for the tribes which are considered to exhibit in the highest degree the characteristics taken as typical of the variety."[18]
Samuel Morton addressed several letters to George Gliddon and stated that he modified many of his old views on ancient Egypt believing them to be similar to Barabra but not Negro.[19]
Works
- Nott, Josiah Clark. Yellow Fever contrasted with Bilious Fever — Reasons for believing it is a disease sui generis — Its mode of Propagation — Remote Cause — Probable insect or animalcular origin, &c. New Orleans Medical and Surgical Journal, volume 4 (1848), pp. 563–601.
- Nott, Josiah Clark. Sketch of the Epidemic of Yellow Fever of 1847, in Mobile. The Charleston Medical Journal and Review, volume 1 (1848), pp. 1–21 Excerpt, PBS, The Great Fever.
- Nott, Josiah Clark. Two Lectures on the Connection between the Biblical and Physical History of Man, Delivered by Invitation, from the Chair of Political Economy, Etc., of the Louisiana University, in December, 1848. (1848)
- Nott, Josiah Clark. An Essay on the Natural History of Mankind, Viewed in Connection with Negro Slavery Delivered Before the Southern Rights Association, 14 December 1850. (1851)
- Nott, Josiah Clark, George R. Gliddon, Samuel George Morton, Louis Agassiz, William Usher, and Henry S. Patterson. Types of Mankind: Or, Ethnological Researches : Based Upon the Ancient Monuments, Paintings, Sculptures, and Crania of Races, and Upon Their Natural, Geographical, Philological and Biblical History, Illustrated by Selections from the Inedited Papers of Samuel George Morton and by Additional Contributions from L. Agassiz, W. Usher, and H.S. Patterson. (1854)
- Nott, Josiah Clark, George Robins Gliddon, and Louis Ferdinand Alfred Maury. Indigenous Races of the Earth; Or, New Chapters of Ethnological Inquiry; Including Monographs on Special Departments. (1857)
See also
References
Notes
- ^
Dewbury, Adam (January 2007), "The American School and Scientific Racism in Early American Anthropology", in Darnell, Regna; Gleach, Frederic W. (eds.), Histories of Anthropology Annual, vol. 3, pp. 141–142, ISBN 978-0803266643
- ^ a b c "Josiah Clark Nott, M.D. (1804–1873)". Alabama Healthcare Hall of Fame. Archived from the original on 2008-07-23. Retrieved 2008-02-20.
- ^ PMID 6140039.
- PMID 4594855.
- ^ David Keane, Caste-based discrimination in international human rights law, 2007, pp. 91–92
- ^ a b c Scott Mandelbrote, Nature and Scripture in the Abrahamic Religions: 1700–present), Volume 2, 2010. pp. 151 – 154
- ^ "Acts 17:26". kingjamesbibleonline.org. Retrieved 23 May 2021.
- ^
Burnett, Lonnie Alexander (2008), Henry Hotze, Confederate propagandist: selected writings on revolution ..., University of Alabama Press, p. 5, ISBN 9780817316204
- ^ Indigenous Races of the Earth (Philadelphia 1857)
- ^ Darwin, Charles (1871). The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex (1st ed.). London: John Murray. p. 217
- ^ "Nott Hall, 1922 [removed] · Campus Historical Markers · ADHC-OmekaS". adhc.lib.ua.edu. Retrieved 2023-11-01.
- ^ Student group seeking change targets building namesakes with racist pasts
- ^ Why keep a KKK leader's name on a University of Alabama building?
- ^ "Alabama strips racist's name from campus building". 5 August 2020.
- ^ Nott, Josiah Clark (1854). Types of Mankind Or Ethnological Researches, Based Upon the Ancient Monuments, Paintings, Sculptures, and Crania of Races, and Upon Their Natural, Geographical, Phililogical, and Biblical History by J.C. Nott and Geo. R. Gliddon. Trübner. p. 225.
- ^ Nott, Josiah Clark (1854). Ibid. p. 217.
- ^ "negroid | Etymology, origin and meaning of negroid by etymonline". www.etymonline.com. Retrieved 2023-07-31.
- ^ Joyce, Thomas Athol; Willcox, Walter Francis (1911). . Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 19 (11th ed.). pp. 344–349.
- ^ Nott, Josiah Clark (1854). Ibid. pp. 231–232.
- ^ Nott, Josiah Clark (1854). Ibid. p. 226.
Further reading
- Horsman, Reginald (October 3, 2011). "Josiah C. Nott". The Encyclopedia of Alabama. Alabama Humanities Foundation.
- Horsman, Reginald (1987). Josiah Nott of Mobile: Southerner, Physician, and Racial Theorist. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press. ISBN 978-0807113660.
- Keel, Terence. (2018). Divine Variations: How Christian Thought Became Racial Science. Stanford, Cali.: Stanford University Press.
- Peterson, Erik L. (2017). "Race and Evolution in Antebellum Alabama: The Polygenist Prehistory We'd Rather Ignore." In: C.D. Lynn et al. (eds)., Evolution Education in the American South, 33–59. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. DOI: 10.1057/978-1-349-95139-0_2.
External links
- Media related to Josiah Clark Nott at Wikimedia Commons
- Works by Josiah C. Nott at Project Gutenberg