The passing of the great race; or, The racial basis of European historyGrant, Madison
History
The passing of the great race; or, The racial basis of European history
Grant, Madison
Ethnology -- Europe
This same Nordic element, everywhere the type of the sailor, the
soldier, the adventurer and the pioneer, was ever the type to migrate to
new countries, until the ease of transportation and the desire to escape
military service in the last forty years reversed the immigrant tide. In
consequence of this change our immigrants now largely represent lowly
refugees from “persecution,” and other social discards.
In most cases the blood of pioneers has been lost to their race. They
did not take their women with them. They either died childless or left
half-breeds behind them. The virile blood of the Spanish conquistadores,
who are now little more than a memory in Central and South America, died
out from these causes.
This was also true in the early days of our Western frontiersmen, who
individually were a far finer type than the settlers who followed them.
In fact, it is said that practically every one of the Forty-Niners in
California was of Nordic type.
VII
THE EUROPEAN RACES IN COLONIES
For reasons already set forth there are few communities outside of
Europe of pure European blood. The racial destiny of Mexico and of the
islands and coasts of the Spanish Main is clear. The white man is being
rapidly bred out by Negroes on the islands and by Indians on the
mainland. It is quite evident that the West Indies, the coast region of
our Gulf States, perhaps, also the black belt of the lower Mississippi
Valley must be abandoned to Negroes. This transformation is already
complete in Haiti and is going rapidly forward in Cuba and Jamaica.
Mexico and the northern part of South America must also be given over to
native Indians with an ever thinning veneer of white culture of the
“Latin” type.
In Venezuela the pure whites number about one per cent of the whole
population, the balance being Indians and various crosses between
Indians, Negroes and whites. In Jamaica the whites number not more than
two per cent, while the remainder are Negroes or mulattoes. In Mexico
the proportion is larger, but the unmixed whites number less than twenty
per cent of the whole, the others being Indians pure or mixed. These
latter are the “greasers” of the American frontiersman.
Whenever the incentive to imitate the dominant race is removed the Negro
or, for that matter, the Indian, reverts shortly to his ancestral grade
of culture. In other words, it is the individual and not the race that
is affected by religion, education and example. Negroes have
demonstrated throughout recorded time that they are a stationary species
and that they do not possess the potentiality of progress or initiative
from within. Progress from self-impulse must not be confounded with
mimicry or with progress imposed from without by social pressure or by
the slaver’s lash.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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