Linnaeus codified a four-variety racial hierarchy with Europeans at the top

Evidence

Carl Linnaeus, the progenitor of Sweden’s Enlightenment, followed in the footsteps of François Bernier and took the lead classifying humanity into a racial hierarchy for the new intellectual and commercial age. In Systema Naturae, first published in 1735, Linnaeus placed humans at the pinnacle of the animal kingdom. He sliced the genus Homo into Homo sapiens (humans) and Homo troglodytes (ape), and so on, and further divided the single Homo sapiens species into four varieties. At the pinnacle of his human kingdom reigned H. sapiens europaeus: “Very smart, inventive. Covered by tight clothing. Ruled by law.” Then came H. sapiens americanus (“Ruled by custom”) and H. sapiens asiaticus (“Ruled by opinion”). He relegated humanity’s nadir, H. sapiens afer, to the bottom, calling this group “sluggish, lazy … [c]rafty, slow, careless. Covered by grease. Ruled by caprice,” describing, in particular, the “females with genital flap and elongated breasts.” — Ibram X. Kendi, Stamped from the Beginning, 204

Categorization

• DEFINE: The four-variety scheme (europaeus, americanus, asiaticus, afer) is the seed of scientific racial classification.
• SHARE: The ‘ruled by law vs. ruled by caprice’ master/slave formulation is a striking primary-source detail.