Polygenism justified colonial intermarriage bans and mixed-race discrimination

Evidence

How striking it is that this liberal still proposes to ‘extinguish’ his Indians in part by ‘declaring them free of tribute’ and ‘giving them private property in land’, rather than exterminating them by gun and microbe as his heirs in Brazil, Argentina, and the United States began to do soon afterwards. Note also, alongside the condescending cruelty, a cosmic optimism: the Indian is ultimately redeemable – by impregnation with white, ‘civilized’ semen, and the acquisition of private property, like everyone else. (How different Fermín’s attitude is from the later European imperialist’s preference for ‘genuine’ Malays, Gurkhas, and Hausas over ‘half-breeds,’ ‘semi-educated natives,’ ‘wogs’, and the like.) — Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities, 63 (#qualifies, via linked claim)

What was true of the empire’s impact on the culture of the metropole in the 192o’s must be true in other decades as well. Republican France has had a long history of partially and sometimes fully excluding certain groups from the larger democratic polity in the twentieth century-immigrants, Jews, and women, as well as colonial subjects, come to mind. The fact that until 1962 France had an empire in which such exclusion was the norm suggests that the practice of colonialism may well have reinforced and enabled these other forms of discrimination in the metropole in ways that have not yet been recognized. Another major conclusion of my study is that this cross-fertilization of ideas, habits, and trends between the Republic and the empire existed, and that it deserves more serious attention than it has received. — Alice L. Conklin, A Mission to Civilize_ The Republican…, 886 (#expands, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Colonial domination doctrine reduces humanity to fixed racial essences; Polygenism destroyed natural law as the bond uniting all peoples — Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism, 471; Darwinism was politically neutral and served both race rule and its opponents (+7 more)

Related

• Customary anti-miscegenation attitudes hardened into formal colonial policy (similarity 0.84)
• Colonial liberal assimilation differed fundamentally from later racialized exclusion (similarity 0.83)
• Colonial exclusion practices reinforced discrimination against immigrants, Jews, and women in France (similarity 0.82)
• Early colonial advocates endorsed racial intermarriage but later abandoned it (similarity 0.81)
• French state policy in the 1920s actively sought racial regeneration of France (similarity 0.80)
• Colonial exclusion practices enabled broader French domestic discrimination until 1962 (similarity 0.80)
• French officials shifted naturalization policy toward racial separation in the 1920s (similarity 0.80)
• French racism endured because it cooperated with progressive, liberal values (similarity 0.79)
• Interracial unions threatened French rule by blurring colonizer-colonized lines (similarity 0.79)
• Colonial racial mixture was permitted locally but barred from the metropole (similarity 0.78)

Broader Connections

• Colonial liberal assimilation differed fundamentally from later racialized exclusion #qualifies (0.78) — Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities, 63
• Colonial race was judged by conduct and affiliation rather than appearance #contradicts (0.75)
• Colonial exclusion practices reinforced discrimination against immigrants, Jews, and women in France #expands (0.75) — Alice L. Conklin, A Mission to Civilize_ The Republican…, 886
• Colonial discourse distinguishes legal equality from factual inequality to justify hierarchy #expands (0.72) — Aimé Césaire, Discourse on Colonialism, 236