Southern Africa functioned as a colonial laboratory for early racial science

Evidence

Robert Knox began his racial anatomies at the Cape before 1820, and Darwin’s cousin and the first to formulate eugenics, Francis Galton, spent two years at mid-century mapping the physical attributes and cultural habits of racial groups in Damaraland and Ovamboland (both now in Namibia). Their southern African scientific beginnings set the stage for later elaboration of their racial theories back in Britain. — David Theo Goldberg, The Threat of Race, 1427

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the pattern of colonies serving as laboratories for metropolitan ideas — echoes of this dynamic elsewhere in colonial science studies.