1.

Introduction

RICHARD GRAHAM

The racial theories prevailing in European, North American, and Latin American
thought from the mid-nineteenth century until the 1920s (and even to 1945)
decidedly shaped public poUcies on a number of important issues. Initiated in

Europe, the classification and ranking of humankind into inferior and superior races
profoundly influenced the development, indeed, the very creation of the sciences.
Biology, medicine, psychology, anthropology, ethnology, and sociology were all to
some degree shaped by an evolutionary paradigm. The spread of Euroi^ean
coloniaUsm and the rapid growth of the United States in the latter half of the
nineteenth century brought additional and supposedly irrefutable proof of the
validity of a scheme that placed the so-called primitive African or Indian at the
bottom of the scale and at its top the "civilized" white European. Many social
policies regarding education, crime, health, and immigration were informed by
these dominant racial theories. Although the raciahst conception of human beings
began to lose its credibility from the early twentieth century, it was not until the

Nazis began to apply those concepts to eugenics and to undertake massive

extermination of the "inferior" races that most scientists firmly denounced the, by
then, pseudo-scientific character of racial theories.
It is now a commonplace among historians to refer to hegemonic ideologies
through which, it is argued, dominant classes shape the entire culture of their
society, creating the predominant intellectual categories and limiting the possible
range of any challenge. These ideologies are accepted (at least for awhile) by the
very groups who are thereby controlled. The idea of race as it was formulated in the
nineteenth century seems to have served that function both within particular
countries and in maintaining or at least in justifying the economic and political
power exercised by some nations over others. Within colonial and neo-colonial
regions of the world it often legitimated rule by the meu-opolis. The idea of race also
made it possible, paradoxically, for mestizos and mulattoes —by identifying them-
selves with white elites as against Indian or black majorities — acceptto theories that

justified white domination over "colored" populations. It is to explore some aspects

of this process within Latin America that the chapters of this book have been
assembled.
2 Introduction

The period chosen for Study, running more or less from 1870 to 1940, was the one
in which the idea of race had its fullest development and received the imprimatur
of science. To be sure, the beUef in the superiority of one human group over
—
another groups that were often defined somatically —
is perhaps as old as human-

kind itself. In European thought the identification of Africans with inferiority was
already common at the time of the Renaissance. With the discovery of America, an
intense debate erupted regarding the nature of the Amerindians; but the practice of
subjugating them soon overrode any theoretical objections. Eighteenth-century
developments in science and the continuing spread of a world economic system
centered on northern Europe stimulated the impulse toward classifying all people
according to some sort of scientific schema. That tendency is apparent in Carl von
Linnaeus' Systema naturae (I0\h ed., 1758), and Johann Friedrich Blumenbach,De
generis humani varietate nativa (1775) —
who coined the word "Caucasian." But
itwas the work of Charles Darwin or, more exactly, interpretations and extensions
by others of his The Origin of the Species (1859) and, especially, his The Descent
of Man (1871) that established a supposed scientific basis for racism.'
As a successful propagandist of the new truth, no one exceeded Herbert Spencer
(1820-1903). He was unmistakably the most imaginative nineteenth-century
thinker to apply Darwin's theory to human society. He first named that theory
"evolution," first used the phrase "survival of the fittest," and firmly linked biology
to the idea of progress, so powerfully attractive at that time: "Evolution can end only
in the establishment of the greatest perfection and most complete happiness."
Human societies, he argued, developed according to the same rules of differentia-
tionand organization as did living organisms, and, as society "grows, its parts
become unlike: it exhibits increase of structure." Or again, "The change from the
homogeneous to the heterogeneous is displayed in the progress of civilization as a
whole, as well as in the progress of every nation." It followed that natural selection
and the survival of the were inevitably the guiding principles both within
fittest

particular societies and of race relations generally. Just as in the animal world "the
struggle for existence has been an indispensable means to evolution," just so with
"social organisms." And differing races exhibited differential abilities to survive
and dominate, so that some were destined to triumph over others.^ Other popular-
izers of what has come to be called "Social Darwinism" did not delay in appearing,
but its spread in Latin America may be largely ascribed to the influence of Spencer.^
Latin Americans faced a difficult intellectual dilemma regarding race. On the one
hand, racial heterogeneity characterized most of their societies. On the other, many
Latin Americans aspired to an ever closer connection to Europe and sought to follow
its leadership in every realm . From the time most of their countries gained political

independence from Spain and Portugal in the early nineteenth century, Latin
American elites strove for an ever closer integration with the northern European
system, whether in trade or in finance, whether in politics or intellectual life. As the
expanding forces of industrial capitalism penetrated ever deeper into the Latin
American economies, so did accompanying social change and intellectual currents.
 Introduction 3

Political and intellectual leaders imagined themselves part of a European civiliza-

tion. Nineteenth-century liberalism —which also had an overpowering influence
—
upon their thought emphasized the idea of the free individual struggling to survive
and ascend." Scientific racism explained why some succeeded while others failed,
seemed to make clear the reasons for contemporary realities in international
relations, and justified the dominance domestically of the few (whites) over the
many (colored). As the technological achievements of Europeans and North
Americans clearly rested on science, its dictums took on a particular prestige. And
the most eminent scientists then endorsed the view that the white race was superior
and destined to triumph over blacks, Indians, mestizos, and mulattoes. Yet, with the
mixed and varied racial composition of their societies clearly before them and a
growing sense of national identity impelling consideration of national futures, these
leaders also hesitated. What to believe? What to do?
Their sometimes anguished response forms the subject of this book. Some
accepted European racist theory without question. Others picked and chose accord-
ing to what seemed to fit reality as they knew it. As Thomas Skidmore points out,
Brazilian intellectuals ignored the "scientific" condemnation of race mixture and
spoke instead of how Brazil would move toward progress through a steady
"whitening" of its population. They simply ignored the fact that such a process must
inevitably imply a "darkening" of some. Race, for them, was not immutable, and
Brazil, far from being condemned to subservience, was destined for a bright
future —only a bit later, after the continuous process of race mixture along with
immigration from Europe and the alleged reproductive weakness of blacks had had
time to work their magic. Similarly for Argentinean and Cuban thinkers, as Aline
Helg shows, whitening offered an escape from the cul de sac posed by European
theories of race. Yet in Argentina, where blacks had already seemed to disappear
through race mixture and where Indians had been ruthlessly exterminated, it was

possible to believe more wholeheartedly in scientific racism (without sacrificing

nationalist hopes) than was the case in Brazil and Cuba. But even Argentines chose
from the writings of Europeans what they wanted to believe and did not focus their

attention on the alleged racial differences among Europeans themselves, differ-

ences that would have placed Italians, Spaniards, and their descendants at a com-
petetive disadvantage vis-a-vis "Aryans."
Even those who later ostensibly opposed scientific racism accepted many of its
premises, sometimes unconsciously. Alan Knight shows that in Mexico, where the
Revolution of 1910 wrought so many drastic changes, poHtical and intellectual

themselves the task of opposing the racist philosophy that had played so
elites set

important a part in the discourse of the prerevolutionary regime. Yet these

spokesmen for indigenismo more often than not failed to distinguish between race
and ethnicity, often revealed a reverse racism every bit as intellectually flawed as
that of those whom they opposed, and allowed anti-Chinese racism to flourish
without criticism. Similarly, the Brazilian race-theories critic Gilberto Frcyre fell

back upon categories of thought initially formulated by those whom he attacked.

4 Introduction

The mestizo and mulatto played an important part in the thinking both of racists
and Mexico, Brazil, and Cuba. Jose Vasconcelos, the Mexican
antiracists in
philosopher, was only one of the writers, albeit the most eloquent one, to claim the
mestizo as the apotheosis of human development. Freyre hailed race mixture as a
national achievement for which Brazil should be proud. For all of these writers,
genetically inherited characteristics continued to play a role inconsistent with a
nonracist approach.
Everywhere, racialist thinking impelled policy decisions. In Argentina, Brazil,
and Cuba (and in Mexico before 1910) it directly affected immigration laws. In
Brazil and Cuba it was used to defend particular responses to criminal behavior. In

Cuba shaped policies toward "witchcraft," encouraged even some segregationist

it

poUcies, affected legislation regarding elections, and fostered the bloody repression
of a black poHtical party. Argentine reaction to labor unrest was guided by a belief
in the danger posed by Russian Jews because of their race. Prerevolutionary Mexico
had drawn on of Indian communi-
racialist theories to justify the disappropriation

ties, model of economic development and project for nation

as well as a particular
building. Mexican revolutionaries similarly drew on concepts about race to ration-
alize policies designed to advance the state while encouraging the formation of
national consciousness. And everywhere in Latin America thinkers understood
education to be a possible escape from racialist determinism, even as they partly
accepted that determinism.
In all four countries a close link existed between racism and reform. It was Jose
Ingenieros, who so vibrandy called for restructuring the Argentine university
curriculum and the destruction of the outdated Spanish colonial educational system,
who led in the advocacy of racist philosophies. It was Fernando Ortiz in Cuba and
Nina Rodrigues in Brazil, pioneer students of Afro-Latin American culture, who
endorsed the idea of innate black criminality. At first it was liberal reformers who
provided the intellectual and political context for the introduction and acceptance
of social Darwinism. Later, in the Mexican case especially, it was revolutionaries
and reformers who perpetuated stereotypes and labels that justified or rationalized
the treatment of Indians as objects of state intervention rather than historical actors
in theirown right. It is the tension between a racially complex reality all about them
and the supposed logic of their thought that makes the idea of race in Latin America
a particularly fascinating subject.

Notes

1 Winthrop P. Jordan, White over Black: American Attitudes toward the Negro,
.

1550-1812 (1968; reprint New York: Norton, 1977), pp. 3-43; Lewis Hanke,
Aristotle and the American Indians: A Study in Race Prejudice in the Modern World
(London: Mollis & Carter, 1959); [M. F.] Ashley Moniagu, Man' s Most Dangerous
Myth (New York: Columbia University Press, 1942), pp. 3-36; idem, The Idea of
Race (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1965); John S. Haller, Jr., Outcasts
 Introduction 5

from Evolution: of Racial Inferiority, 1859-1900 (Urbana:

Scientific Attitudes
Nancy Stepan, The Idea of Race in
University of Illinois Press, 1971), pp. 3-6;
Science: Great Britain, 1800-1960 (London: Macmillan in Association with St.
Antony's College, Oxford, 1982), pp. 1-110; Stephen Jay Gould, Ever Since
Darwin: Reflections in Natural History (New York: Norton, 1977). A useful
account of the trajectory of the idea of race is to be found in Michael Bd^nion, Racial
Theories (Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 1987).
2. Herbert Spencer, First Principles, (New York: Appleton, 1898), p. 530;
[? ed.]

idem, The Principles of Sociology, 3 vols. (New York: Appleton, 1889), 1: 462 and
II: 241; idem, "Progress: Its Law and Cause," in Essays, Scientific, Political and
Speculative, 3 vols. (New York: Appleton, 1891), I: 19.

3. His influence was also great in North America; see Richard Hofstadter, Social
Darwmww Awer/can r/zoM^/zr, 7560-7975 (Philadelphia: University of Pennsyl-
/>i

vania Press, 1 944) On the spread of Darwin s science see Thomas F. Click, ed.. The
. '

Comparative Reception of Darwinism (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1974).

Among other authors, Joseph Arthur de Gobineau had a particularly strong
influence in Latin America.
4. See the masterful summary of the period's intellectual currents by Charles A.
Hale, "Political and Social Ideas in Latin America, 1870-1930," in The Cambridge
History of Latin America, ed. Leslie Bethell, vol. 4 (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1988), pp. 367^14.