Nineteenth-Century Biological Theories on Race | Research & Encyclopedia Articles

Nineteenth-Century Biological Theories on Race

Overview

In 1848 the whole of Europe was plagued by revolution. Fueled by nationalist and ethnic individual interests, these revolutions were a symptom of change in how men viewed the concept of race. Drawing upon biological theories of the day, the European revolutionaries of the mid-nineteenth century formulated a social theory of race that served their nationalist interests. In a mesh of scientific inquiry and political dogma, the terms race and ethnicity were used interchangeably. Although the conflicts brought upon by the transfer, and in most cases misappropriation, of scientific ideas to the social concepts of race were not limited to the nineteenth century, this era spawned many of the modern conceptions and misconceptions concerning race.

Background

As European contact with distant places and different peoples became commonplace, the desire to explain both physical and cultural differences increased. European conquistadors and explorers documented the physical characteristics of native peoples they encountered in the Americas. Centuries later, American slave owners and European colonists in Africa both mentioned in their writings what they perceived as characteristic traits of the native African peoples. Moreover, the era of colonization sparked a general philosophical and theological interest in describing distant groups of people.

Nineteenth-Century Biological Theories on Race article

Read the rest of this article.
This article contains 1,695 words (approx. 6 pages at 300 words per page).