On the Phenomena of Hybridity in the Genus Homo

After observing that these tribes live chiefly from the produce of the chase, and come to town to exchange their fish for fish-hooks, bread, or rum, Cunningham adds that this trade gives rise to scenes of debauchery, that the prostitution of native females with the whites had assumed considerable proportions, “considering that the Australians lend their women to the convicts for a slice of bread or a pipe of tobacco.”68 It is useless to cite other testimony after the chief defender of the Australian race has thus expressed himself.

It is thus perfectly certain that numerous alliances have taken place and are taking place between the Europeans and the native women. The inhabitants of the colony, who could not but be aware of it, have had recourse to a singular hypothesis, accepted by Cunningham and recently by Waitz. They have imagined that the Australian husbands, excited by jealousy, killed all the new-born children of mixed blood; and to these hypothetical massacres (of which there is no proof whatever) they attribute the rarity of cross-breeds. In order that this tale should acquire some probability, it is first requisite that all the Australian women should be under the dominion of jealous and ferocious husbands, and that none of the females had the maternal instinct sufficiently developed to save her child from the fury of her husband. Cunningham, in accepting this explanation, forgets that he in the same page relates that the Australians prostitute their gins to the first comer for a pipe of tobacco. Such beings would not feel themselves much dishonoured by the birth of the strange child. But here is an instance proving that the Australians are not altogether devoid of humour; showing, at least, that they have no notion of conjugal honour. Bongarri, of whom we have already spoken, and who in 1825 was the most celebrated chief of the Australian hordes of Port Jackson, treated as his son the offspring of the adulterous intercourse of his gin with a convict of the place. When he was asked how it came to pass that his son had such a fair complexion, he replied jocularly, “that his wife was very fond of white bread and had partaken too much of it.” He invariably returned the same answer to inquirers.69 If a warrior chief covered with honourable scars70 attaches such small importance to the fidelity of his wife, and jokes about his dishonour, it is scarcely admissible that the men of his tribe should be more susceptible in this respect. Yet this very chief found it, according to Cunningham,71 quite natural that, according to the Australian custom, the weakest of two new-born twins should be killed.

This custom has been cited to show that the Australian women attach no importance to the lives of their children, and that, consequently, they would offer no resistance to the massacre of the new-born Mulattoes. A race of beings, where the females do not love their young, would scarcely be a human race. The custom of preserving only one twin, and to sacrifice the other on the day of its birth, seems improbable and inexplicable; but taking into consideration the famishing condition of the Australians, the uncertainty and the insufficiency of their alimentation, the absolute want of social organisation, and the material difficulty attending the bringing up of only one child, it may be imagined that the mother, incapable, perhaps, of suckling one baby, resigns herself to sacrificing one child to save the other. There is, therefore, no absolute parallel between the custom in regard to twins and that of the pretended massacre of cross-breeds. If it be still supposed that the natives of the environs of Sydney, perverted by their intercourse with convicts, and exasperated by their violence, have adopted this revolting habit, we should even then only admit that such a degradation is merely local in its application. Certain abominations spread from place to place, and are transmitted from people to people; but a usage so contrary to natural instinct, does not arise simultaneously, and under the same form in different parts of a country. The Australians, however, of Sydney, have no means of transmitting their customs either to the natives of Tasmania, or of Port Essington in North Australia. Dr. Waitz supposes that even seven hundred miles from Sydney the natives sacrifice all young Mulattoes. This supposition is rather hazardous, specially as the traveller whom he quotes merely says that these Mulattoes do not appear to be capable of development.72

We conclude from this perhaps too lengthy discussion, that the murder of the Australian Mulattoes is a vulgar tale. Admitting that such murders occur occasionally, or even that they are frequent, there should even then be many Mulattoes in Australia provided the intermixture be very prolific. We can in the above strange explanation only find a confirmation, and a very strong one too, of the fact we have established, namely, that the cross-breeds are rare in Australia. If this fact had not been perfectly evident, there would not have been any occasion to explain it, and Mr. Cunningham, who has made such strenuous efforts to reinstate the natives, would not have charged them with such a terrible accusation.

We have not exhausted the list of hypotheses advanced, to explain the nearly constant sterility attending the intercourse between Australians and Tasmanians and the English. It has also been said that for the most part the intercourse between the two races was accidental, momentary, and that consequently the native woman has a much greater chance to become pregnant by her savage husband than by her European lovers, and that the rarity of Australian Mulattoes had no other cause. M. de Freycinet seems to have accepted this explanation. “No permanent alliances are formed between the two peoples, though we find here and there some Mulattoes; but these are merely the result of some transitory connections of Europeans with Australian women.”73

Observations of Count Strzelecki; discussion

We would first observe that the number of mongrels is in many countries much more considerable, if the intermixture is effected in the same manner as is notably the case in South Africa. There are cross-breeds in several of the Polynesian Islands, where the Europeans have never permanently settled, but only appeared temporarily. There should, therefore, be a good number of them in the Australian colonies, even if it were true that the Whites have never formed a permanent alliance with the native females. It can, however, not be doubted, that more or less enduring alliances have taken place between the two races, namely, that many Whites have kept for months and years Australian concubines under their roof.74 This fact positively results from the controversy raised by Count Strzelecki. This celebrated traveller, who has visited America and Oceania, remarked that the native women, after having once lived with the white race, become sterile with the men of their own race, though they may still be capable of becoming pregnant by white men. He asserts that he has collected hundreds of such cases among the Hurons, Seminoles, Araucaños, Polynesians, and Melanesians. He does not attempt to explain this strange phenomenon, which, he observes, is owing to some mysterious law, and which appears to him to be one of the causes of the rapid decay of indigenous populations in regions occupied by Europeans.75

Mr. Alex. Harvey says that Professors Goodsir, Maunsel, and Carmichael have, from various sources, ascertained that Count Strzelecki’s assertion is unquestionable, and must be considered as the expression of a law of nature.76

M. de Strzelecki has not specified that the sterilisation of the native females was the consequence of the procreation of cross-breeds. He merely speaks of sexual relations in general; and it appears to result from the text, that a native woman who has cohabited for some time with a European, becomes sterile in the intercourse with men of her own race, even if she has not produced a child.

It has, however, been assumed that this observer speaks only of such women who have at least once been impregnated by a European, and it is in this form that the question has been examined by physiologists. The question has been asked, how the gestation of a Mulatto’s fœtus could modify the constitution of the mother to render her barren with the men of her own race; and Mr. Alex. Harvey,77 in developing a theory of Mr. McGillivray, has supposed that the embryo, whilst in utero, subjected the mother, by some sort of inoculation, to organic or dynamic modifications, the elements of which had been transmitted to the embryo by the father, and the mother would then retain the impress permanently. In support of this hypothesis, the author reminds us that certain diseases, such as old and non-contagious syphilis, may be communicated to the mother by the mediation of the fœtus. He further observes that in horses, oxen, sheep, and dogs, a female, impregnated for the first time by a male, may for a long time preserve a certain disposition to produce with another male young resembling the first, a phenomenon well-known to breeders. He finally remarks that a mare, having given birth to a mule, conceives subsequently with greater difficulty from horses than from asses, and he connects these instances with those of the native women who once impregnated by a white man, become by it barren in their connexion with men of their own race without, however, losing the capacity of becoming again pregnant by white men.

I cannot accept this adventurous theory which Dr. Carpenter was nearly ready to adopt, but which he has discarded in a postscript, owing to fresh information which he received while his article went to press.78 The influence of the first male upon the succeeding progeny has been many times rendered evident by the crossing of animals of the same race, and even of different species.79 The existence of such a phenomenon in the human species is, at any rate, still doubtful, and the connexion of facts of this kind, with Strzelecki’s assertion, is yet more questionable. We must also observe that Strzelecki, in pointing out the barrenness of savage women who have cohabited with the Whites, does not merely speak of such who have produced Mulattoes, but applies equally to those women who had not given birth to any children; and if Mr. Harvey had taken the exact meaning of the text, he might, perhaps, not have advanced his theory.

The observations of M. de Strzelecki, though made in various regions, have been published in a work on Australia. It was thought that he spoke especially of the native women of New South Wales, and it was more from that country that more information was expected on that subject. Mr. Heywood Thomson, a surgeon of the English navy, took up the question, and sent to the Edinburgh Monthly Journal an article tending to refute Strzelecki’s assertion. This article effectively shows that Strzelecki’s opinion was far too general. The author states, that he had known a colonist of the Macquarie river, who communicated to him the following fact: – One of his convict servants had a child born him by an Australian woman, who subsequently returned to her own tribe, had then a second child by a native man. Mr. Thomson states, that other instances of the kind had occurred in the colony; and he strikes a fatal blow at Mr. Harvey’s theory by adding, that the Australian women who have for a certain time cohabited with the Whites, are not more prolific with them than with the natives. But though Mr. Thomson has endeavoured to prove that the cohabitation with Europeans does not necessarily render Australian women barren with men of their own race, he acknowledges that such a result is very common. He admits it as a fact which cannot be contested,80 and considers it so certain that he tries to explain it, by attributing it to the following causes: —

1. The European who has cohabited with an Australian woman, sends her away after the lapse of a few years, when she is often not young enough to produce children, as Australian women rarely conceive after the thirtieth year. 2. The cohabitation with a European modifies the constitution of the savage woman, who smokes, and is frequently intoxicated during that time. 3. Having not lost the habits of savage life, she returns to her tribe, where she now has some difficulty to support fatigues and irregularities, which diminishes her fecundity. 4. Finally, when she becomes a mother, and the fatigues of maternity are added to her other troubles, she tries to escape them by infanticide. It is to the united effect of these causes that the author attributes the rarity of children born of Australian native women who have returned to their tribes.

It is very significant when an author, despite of himself, confirms by his theories, facts which he had undertaken to disprove. I will not allude again to the story of infanticide, a hundred times more improbable here, than in cases where the child had been begotten by a European. Though it follows, from Mr. Thomson’s article, that Strzelecki’s assertion was too general, it results at the same time that the assertion was well founded. But this is not the place to search for the explanation of a phenomenon which, despite the efforts of Mr. Harvey, does not touch hybridity. If I have dwelt on the fact, it is because the polemics raised by Strzelecki’s observations have incontestably established that the cohabitation of Whites and native Australian women is very common in Australia; and we do not comprehend under this name the sexual intercourse which is accidental and transitory, such as occurs when the women come to market, but the cohabitation under the same roof, and prolonged during several months, and even years. The scarcity of Australian Mulattoes can thus be attributed neither to the rarity nor to the transitory nature of sexual intercourse; neither can we admit, until we are better informed, that the relative sterility of such crossings is the consequence of some homœogenesic defect between the two races.

In studying the cases preceding those just mentioned, we have put the question whether Mulattoes of the first degree were, between themselves, indefinitely prolific, to answer which we had to analyse a certain number of facts. In the present case the facts fail us, and the question can only be examined theoretically. No traveller or author has spoken of the alliance of Australian Mulattoes between themselves, nor of their recrossing on the parent stock. No writer has informed us whether these Mulattoes are robustious, intelligent, vivacious, or, on the contrary, weak, stupid, and short-lived. One thing appears to me certain, that the number of young Mulattoes who die at an early age, or who are not viable, must be relatively considerable, and this may perhaps have given rise to the accusation of infanticide, which I have already refuted. This defective progeny is also observed in the crossings of certain species of animals but little homœogenesic; and if it be true, as everything tends to establish, that the union of the Whites and the Australian women is but little prolific, we may suppose that Mulattoes sprung from such disparate unions, must enter the category of inferior cross-breeds. Are they very prolific between themselves? This seems not very probable, though we have no experimental knowledge of it. It is even doubtful whether they are very prolific with the Whites, for no one has mentioned the existence of Quadroon Mulattoes, which might be as easily recognised as the Quadroons of the Antilles. However small the number of hybrid women of the first degree may be, these women ought to have produced with the Whites, if they had been very prolific, a progeny which ought to have become numerous in the population of a colony founded above seventy years; for there can be no doubt that there, as everywhere, the woman of colour selects by preference the alliance of men of a superior race.

I am far from advancing these suppositions as demonstrated truths. I have studied and analysed all documents within my reach; but I cannot be responsible for facts not ascertained by myself, and which are too much in opposition to generally received opinions to be admitted without strict investigation. I, therefore, earnestly draw the attention of travellers, and especially of physicians resident in Australia to this subject, the importance of which I have endeavoured to point out. Until we obtain further particulars we can only reason upon the known facts; but these, it must be admitted, are so numerous and so authentic as to constitute if not a rigorous definitive demonstration, at least a strong presumption in favour of the doctrines of polygenists.

Conclusions on human hybridity

From the whole of our researches on the hybridity of the human race we obtain the following results: —

1. That certain intermixtures are perfectly eugenesic.

2. That other intermixtures are in their results notably inferior to those of eugenesic hybridity.

3. That Mulattoes of the first degree, issued from the union of the Germanic (Anglo-Saxon) race with the African Negroes, appear inferior in fecundity and longevity to individuals of the pure races.

4. That it is at least doubtful, whether these Mulattoes, in their alliances between themselves, are capable of indefinitely perpetuating their race, and that they are less prolific in their direct alliances than in their recrossing with the parent stocks, as is observed in paragenesic hybridity.

5. That alliances between the Germanic race (Anglo-Saxon) with the Melanesian races (Australians and Tasmanians) are but little prolific.

6. That the Mulattoes sprung from such intercourse are too rare to have enabled us to obtain exact particulars as to their viability and fecundity.

7. That several degrees of hybridity, which have been observed in the cross-breeds of animals of different species, seem also to occur in the various crossings of men of different races.

8. That the lowest degree of human hybridity in which the homœogenesis is so feeble as to render the fecundity of the first crossing uncertain, is exhibited in the most disparate crossings between one of the most elevated and the two lowest races of humanity.

SECTION IV

RECAPITULATION AND CONCLUSION

The numerous and controverted questions which we had to discuss, have more than once interrupted the chain of our thesis. It may, therefore, be useful to present here a résumé of the various parts of our argumentation.

Zoologists have, in each of the natural groups which constitute the genera, recognised several types which they denominate species.81

The human group evidently constitutes one genus; if it consisted only of one species, it would form a single exception in creation. It is, therefore, but natural to presume, that this genus is, like all the others, composed of different species.

In the greater number of genera, the various species differ much less from each other than certain human races. A naturalist, who, without touching the question of origin, purely and simply applies to the human genus the general principles of zootaxis, would be inclined to divide this genus into different species.

This mode of viewing the subject can only be abandoned, if it were by observation demonstrated that all the difference between human races had been the result of modifications caused in the organisation of man by the influence of media.

The monogenists have at first made great efforts to furnish such a demonstration, but without success. Observation has, on the contrary, shown, that though the organisation of man may, in the course of time, and under the influence of external conditions, undergo some modification, yet that these modifications are relatively very slight, and have no relation to the typical differences of human races. Man, transplanted into a new climate, and subjected to a new mode of life, conserves and transmits to posterity all the essential characters of his race, and his descendants do not acquire the character of the indigenous race or races. Cœlum, non corpus mutant qui trans mare currunt.

The monogenists have objected that the period of distant colonies is too recent; that the observations tending to establish the permanence of human types date scarcely from three or four centuries, and that this lapse of time is insufficient to produce a transformation of races, and that such a transformation has been produced gradually during the long series of centuries elapsed, according to some from the creation of man, and according to others since the Deluge.

But the study of the Egyptian paintings has shown, that on the one hand the principal types of the human genus existed then, 2,500 years at least before Jesus Christ, as they exist at this day.

Again, the Jewish race, scattered for more than eighteen centuries in the most different climates, is everywhere the same now as it was in Egypt at the time of the Pharaohs.

The period of positive observations dates thus, from more than forty centuries and not from three or four.82

Having no longer any hope to prove by direct demonstrations that the distinctive characters of human races are transformations of one primitive type, the monogenists sought for indirect proofs. They believed to have found them in this fact, or rather assertion, that there is always a certain relation between the characters of human races and the media in which they exist. On close examination this assertion is found to be without any foundation. On studying one by one the principal ethnological characters and their distribution on the surface of the globe, it has been shown that there is no relation between these different characters and the climatic and hygienic conditions.

The monogenists then resorted to an argumentation still more indirect. They advanced that in the whole genus homo there existed a fund of common ideas, creeds, knowledge, and language, attesting the common origin of all human beings. It might be objected that this argument is without any value whatever; considering that indirect communications between peoples of different origin might have passed to each other words, usages, and ideas. But a profound study of the question has shown that there are certain peoples who have absolutely no notion of God or soul, whose languages have no relation whatever to any, who are altogether anti-social, and who differ from the Caucasians more by the intellectual and moral capacities than by their physical characters.

There was even no necessity to insist upon the difficulty, or rather geographical impossibility of the dispersion of so many races proceeding from a common origin, nor to remark that before the remote and the almost recent migrations of Europeans, each natural group of human races occupied upon our planet a region characterised by a special fauna; that no American animal was found either in Australia nor in the ancient continent, and where men of a new type were discovered, there were only found animals belonging to species, even to genera, and sometimes to zoological orders, without analogues in other regions of the globe.

And whilst it was thus simple to suppose that there were several faci of the creation of man, as well as of other beings; and whilst this doctrine, so conformable to all the data furnished by natural science, removed all geographical objections, explaining thus all the analogies and differences of human types, and the repartition of each group; whilst, in one word, it exactly accounted for all the known facts, the opposite doctrine moved in a circle of contradictory suppositions superimposed by hypotheses; theories founded upon a small number of facts upset by other unexpected facts; imaginary influences refuted by observation; anti-historical legends dispelled by historical monuments; lame explanations destroyed by physiology; obscure sophisms refuted by logic; and all this to demonstrate, not exactly that all races descend from the same pair, but that, strictly speaking, such is not altogether impossible.

Whence have the monogenists derived the requisite perseverance and courage to impose upon their reason such continuous restraint, and to resist the testimonies of observation, science, and history?

On analysing their system, we find at every moment two fundamental axioms which serve them as articles of faith, and the evidence of which appears to them sufficient to surmount all other objections.