The Anatomy of Blackness: Science and Slavery in an Age of Enlightenment

Notes

Notes In the notes that follow below, the Encyclopédie, ou, dictionnaire raisonné des sciences, des arts, et des métiers, edited by Diderot and d’Alembert (Paris, 1751–72), is cited as ENC. The three editions of Raynal’s Histoire philosophique et politique des établissements et du commerce des Européens dans les deux Indes, commonly abbreviated as Histoire des deux Indes (4 vols., Amsterdam, 1770; 8 vols., The Hague, 1774; 10 vols., Geneva, 1780) are cited as HDI. Buffon’s Histoire naturelle, générale et particulière (Paris, 1749–88) is cited as HN. Unless otherwise noted, all translations are my own. I have also modernized French and English in both text and notes, although actual titles have been given in their original forms. Preface 1. Kennedy, Nigger, 4. 2. Moreover, in a text such as Buffon’s Histoire naturelle, the capitalization (or not) of the term nègre is seemingly arbitrary, shifting from section to section. Capitalization may have had more to do with the typesetter than with Buffon himself, although there are places where it seems more deliberate, for example, when Buffon is citing a list of human categories. 3. Eze, Race and the Enlightenment, 2. 4. Gordon, “Introduction,” in Postmodernism and the Enlightenment, ed. id., 2. Introduction 1. See Klaus, “A History of the Science of Pigmentation,” in Pigmentary System, ed. Nordlund, 5. See also Riolan, Manuel anatomique et pathologique. 2. Leeuwenhoek, Collected Letters, 4: 245. 3. Alexis Littré is sometimes referred to as Littre. The experiment involved speculation on the relationship between the color of the foreskin and the skin on other parts of the penis. See Histoire de l’Académie royale des sciences de Paris ([1702] 1703), 31–32. 4. For a more complete contextualization of Malfert’s text, see Ehrard, Lumières et esclavage, 105. As Ehrard’s account makes clear, Malfert’s article, “Mémoire sur l’origine des nègres et des Américains,” was criticized for engaging somewhat positively with the idea that the two races came from different seeds. 5. Monsieur de J***, “Explication,” in Mémoires pour l’Histoire des sciences et des beaux arts (1738). This is the so-called Journal de Trévoux. 6. “Quelle est la cause physique de la couleur des nègres, de la qualité de leurs cheveux , et de la dégénération de l’un et de l’autre?” The question was published in the Jour- 226 Notes to Pages 4–9 nal des sçavans and in a variety of other periodicals in 1739. For the essays in response, see Bibliothèque municipale de Bordeaux ms. 825/65. 7. See the more developed discussion of these findings in chap. 4 above. 8. See Augstein, Race, ed. id., xx. 9. See Porter, ed., Cambridge History of Science, vol. 4: Eighteenth-Century Science, 50– 51. 10. “L’anatomie a été portée presque au dernier degré de perfection [puisque] [l]es anatomistes et les physiologistes les plus célèbres ont senti qu’il était temps de diriger leurs recherches vers les causes des mouvements des animaux et les ressorts cachés de leurs sensations” (Millin, Magasin encyclopédique, 4: 155). 11. See Morenas, Dictionnaire portatif, 387, on “la forme qui convient le mieux avec leur façon de vivre [et la satisfaction de] leurs besoins.” According to Morenas, anatomical knowledge was among the most valuable contributions that science had to offer , inasmuch as it was essential in the “traitement des maladies qui sont l’objet de la médecine et de la chirurgie [treatment of diseases that are the object of medicine and surgery]” (ibid., 4:155). 12. Laqueur, Making Sex, 26–35. 13. The era’s basic understanding of the nègre was also heavily influenced by symbolic concepts related to darkness. As critics including Gustav Jahoda have asserted, the blackness of the nègre went far beyond the strictly physical realm. Denoting both the presence of obscurity and the absence of color, blackness seemingly functioned as the antithesis of Christ the Light; it also recalled the curse that had been cast on the son of Ham. See Jahoda, Images of Savages, 26. 14. Buffon cites Lade quite frequently. See, e.g., his description of the Hottentot in HN, 3: 476. 15. Swift, “On Poetry : A Rhapsody,” in id., Poems, ed. Williams, 2: 645–46. 16. Lobo, Voyage to Abyssinia, trans. Johnson from Joachim Le Grand’s French translation of the Portuguese text, which appeared in...