'By suggesting their triumphs stemmed from their having partial white ancestry, white critics attempted to rob [Frederick Douglass and Antonio Maceo] of their status as exemplars of Black genius.' BlackHistoryMonth
Sometimes it is the strange similarities and symmetries of unrelated historical moments that most clearly display the patterns of human experience. Archives separated by oceans can be in dialogue with each other. A case in point: in the National Library of Scotland and the national archives in Cuba, you can find unsettling documents detailing the skull measurements of two renowned Black leaders of the 19th century.
Why skulls? Why were some 19th-century scientists so crazy for craniums? Samuel George Morton, a scientist from Philadelphia, epitomized this trend. Morton’s office, filled with skulls from around the world , was affectionately known as the “American Golgotha.” To Morton, skulls were the key: cranial characteristics dictated racial difference and supposedly proved Europeans were the pinnacle of human advancement.
Henry Louis Gates, Jr. describes the scene cogently: “Imagine if Ulysses S. Grant had died during the Civil War. And imagine if scientists then decided to cut him up like a frog in biology class to find out if his skeleton looked more English, say, or Irish. This was scandalous.” Maceo’s measurements were compared with those of “Blacks of Africa,” “Modern Parisians,” and “adult Europeans.” The examiners divined that while Maceo’s skeleton resembled that of a man of African descent, his cranium was more European. The conclusion declared that “given the race to which he belonged and the sphere in which he nurtured and pursued his activities, Antonio Maceo can, in all rightness, be considered as a truly superior man” .
While Combe did not dwell on Douglass’s mixed ancestry, others did. The orator had been born to an enslaved woman on the Eastern Shore of Maryland. His father, he presumed, was his and his mother’s white owner. As with Maceo, racists explained his oratorical power by pointing to his “European” or “Anglo-Saxon” blood.
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