The Rising Tide of Color Against White World-SupremacyStoddard, Lothrop
History
The Rising Tide of Color Against White World-Supremacy
Stoddard, Lothrop
Caucasian race; Race relations
From the first glance we see that, in the negro, we are in the presence of
a being differing profoundly not merely from the white man but also from
those human types which we discovered in our surveys of the brown and
yellow worlds. The black man is, indeed, sharply differentiated from the
other branches of mankind. His outstanding quality is superabundant animal
vitality. In this he easily surpasses all other races. To it he owes his
intense emotionalism. To it, again, is due his extreme fecundity, the
negro being the quickest of breeders. This abounding vitality shows in
many other ways, such as the negro's ability to survive harsh conditions
of slavery under which other races have soon succumbed. Lastly, in ethnic
crossings, the negro strikingly displays his prepotency, for black blood,
once entering a human stock, seems never really bred out again.
Negro fecundity is a prime factor in Africa's future. In the savage state
which until recently prevailed, black multiplication was kept down by a
wide variety of checks. Both natural and social causes combined to
maintain an extremely high death-rate. The negro's political ineptitude,
never rising above the tribal concept, kept black Africa a mosaic of
peoples, warring savagely among themselves and widely addicted to
cannibalism. Then, too, the native religions were usually sanguinary,
demanding a prodigality of human sacrifices. The killings ordained by
negro wizards and witch-doctors sometimes attained unbelievable
proportions. The combined result of all this was a wastage of life which
in other races would have spelled a declining population. Since the
establishment of white political control, however, these checks on black
fecundity are no longer operative. The white rulers fight filth and
disease, stop tribal wars, and stamp out superstitious abominations. In
consequence, population increases by leaps and bounds, the latent
possibilities being shown in the native reservations in South Africa,
where tribes have increased as much as tenfold in fifty or sixty years. It
is therefore practically certain that the African negroes will multiply
prodigiously in the next few decades.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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