Indigenous Races of the Earth; or, New Chapters of Ethological Inquiry; including monographs on special departments of philology, iconography, cranioscopy, palaeontology, pathology, archaeology, comparative geography, and natural history: Contributed by Alfred Maury, Francis Pulszky, and J. Aiken Meigs. With contributions from Jos. Leiden and L. Agassiz. Presenting fresh investigations by J. C. Nott and Geo. R. Glidden.

Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott & Co., 1857. First edition.

1847 "ONE OF THE MOST EGREGIOUSLY RACIST PUBLICATIONS IN THE HISTORY OF PHYSICAL ANTHROPOLOGY"--GARRISON-MORTON.

16x25 cm publisher's brown cloth binding, blindstamped, gilt title to spine, 2 large folding illustrated charts: "Ethnographic Tableau--Specimens of Various Races of Mankind", and "Chart Illustrative of the Geographical distribution of Monkeys, in their relation to that of some inferior Types of Men." 9 lithographic plates, including colored frontispiece. Prefatory remarks by George Gliddon, A. W. Habersham, Louis Agassiz, Joseph Leidy. xxii, 656 pp, including list of subscribers, many wood engravings throughout. Spine ends chipped, corners worn, binding tight, text clean and unmarked, plates and folding charts clean and intact, very good minus in custom archival mylar cover. Copies of Indigenous Races of the Earth are scarce, particularly with well preserved folding charts.

SAMUEL GEORGE MORTON (1799-1851) was an American physician and natural scientist. Morton is often thought of as the originator of "American School" ethnography, a school of thought in antebellum American science that claimed the difference between humans was one of species rather than variety and is seen by some as the origin of scientific racism. He argued against the single creation story of the Bible (monogenism) and instead supported a theory of multiple racial creations (polygenism. Morton claimed that he could define the intellectual ability of a race by the skull capacity. A large volume meant a large brain and high intellectual capacity, and a small skull indicated a small brain and decreased intellectual capacity. He claimed that each race had a separate origin, and that a descending order of intelligence could be discerned that placed White people at the pinnacle and Negroes at the lowest point, with various other race groups in between. The publication of Darwin's Origin of Species in 1859 changed the nature of the scholarly debate and affirmed the essential unity of the human species by establishing extraordinarily long-time scales as the basis for human development, allowed for the conception of far greater variety than had previously been thought. In The Mismeasure of Man (1981), Stephen J. Gould asserted that Morton had selectively reported data, manipulated sample compositions, made analytical errors, and mismeasured skulls to support his prejudicial views on intelligence differences between different populations. This was followed by dissenting views by anthropologists and a report in Nature that questioned the motivations of the various investigators, citing bias.

JOSIAH CLARK NOTT (1804 - 1873) was an American physician and surgeon, influenced by Morton's racial theories. The owner of nine slaves, Nott used his influence and his science to defend the subjugation of blacks through slavery. He received his medical degree from the University of Pennsylvania and began surgical practice in Mobile, Alabama in 1833. Nott persistently attacked the scientific basis of the Bible and also rejected the theory of evolution, claiming that the environment does not change any organism into another, and also rejecting common descent.

GEORGE ROBINS GLIDDON (1809-1857) was an English-born American Egyptologist who became United States vice-consul, He was influenced by Morton's craniometry and polygenist theory of human origins. Morton's followers, particularly Gliddon and Nott in their monumental tribute to Morton's work, Types of Mankind (1854), that furthered Morton's theory of polygenism. He believed that neither environment nor climate could change a race into another.

GARRISON-MORTON No. 8825. Expensively produced, and sold in both standard and large paper subscriber editions, Nott and Gliddon's work was one of the most egregiously racist publications in the history of physical anthropology. Polygenist arguments about race were particularly attractive in the antebellum South, as they provided support for slavery without overtly contradicting the Bible's account of the creation. One of the most outrageous of these arguments (by our standards) was Agassiz's correlation of the geographical distribution of monkeys with that of the "inferior" (i.e., non-white) races of man, an idea further developed by Gliddon in a fold-out chart.