While discussing with a friend Gobineau's racial theories and beliefs in degeneration (and its positive benefits, surprisingly), I was reminded of Gobineau's thoughts on Haiti. For Gobineau, the explanation of why societies collapse was rooted in degeneration. To him, degeneration occurred when a people no longer have the same intrinsic value as they previously possessed (Gobineau 25). He also stated that there were two laws: repulsion and attraction to the crossing of blood. Naturally, Gobineau takes it for granted that there are distinct (and unequal) human races and the white or Aryan race is at the apogee. Furthermore, his approach to history is built on a model of civilization in which the ten greatest civilizations were founded by white Aryans who mixed with blacks (who cannot initiate civilization on their own), Semites, and "yellow" Asiatics, leading to degeneration and decline (211). This path to degeneration progressed as more hybrids formed with different strengths and weaknesses over time (210).
Nonetheless, Gobineau admitted that every mixture or example of miscegenation is not harmful, such as the artistic genius of black-white mixing or Malayan yellow and black miscegenation producing a race more intelligent than either forebear (208). Indeed, Gobineau even wrote that the happiest blend for human beauty is the marriage of black and white (151). Yet, he also argued that it was impossible to fuse different races in a civilization because of racial antagonism and difference in culture (179). As evidence, he cited the failure to communicate civilization to savages in Algeria, India, and Java under colonial rule (171). Furthermore, so-called "savage races" stay savage, even when imitating superior races (173). Of course, class was also part of this, thus Gobineau viewed the French lower classes as an abyss over which civilization is suspended (101). Hence, Gobineau supported monarchy as the best form of government, organizing society under a rational individual to lead collective will and unite interests (159).
Now that we have arrived at some idea of Gobineau's views on history, racial miscegenation, and civilization, with degeneration as the driving cause of a society or civilization's fall, let us examine his thoughts on Hispaniola. Because of his fusion of race and civilization, he saw the island of "San Domingo" as one in which European models were inapplicable for the inhabitants (46). Contrasting the Dominican Republic with Haiti, Gobineau saw the "mulattoes" of the eastern part of Hispaniola as being able to reproduce European customs to a certain extent (48). Considering his aforementioned acknowledgement of some of the benefits of racial mixing, one should not be surprised that the Dominican Republic was an example in which racial mixture produced an uplifting affect (208).
However, on the subject of Haiti, Gobineau's "scientific racism" is unleashed. Gustave d'Alaux's articles in the Revue des deux mondes provided the source for his knowledge of Haiti, and it shows (48). He perceived Haiti as an example in which enlightened French and European laws conflicted with the population, comparing Haiti to Dahomey. Haitians, to Gobineau, were lazy and the black majority of Haiti, limited by African ideals of laziness and murder, prevented open-minded mulattoes from maintaining or imitating civilization (49). To Gobineau, the history of Haiti was nothing but massacres of mulattoes versus blacks. Black or African savagery was the true spirit, and Haitian blacks were allegedly opposed to other races through a hatred of foreigners (50). Mulattoes in Haiti, on the other hand, could be tutored and remain on the coasts while blacks in the interior revert to tribes and fight each other (51).
Gobineau's bicolored view of Haiti reflected a problematic reliance on biased sources like Gustave d'Alaux, but also brings to mind something a Haitian academic pointed out about Firmin's work. According to him, Firmin never really disputed Gobineau. Gobineau admitted that there are black individuals, for example, who can be more intelligent than whites, such as African chiefs being superior to French peasants or average middle-classes (180). On the question of racial mixture and degeneration, Gobineau's views were complex, since black-white mixture could produce hybrids with artistic genius or physical beauty. Here, I believe, Firmin and other Haitian writers did disprove the silliness of racial theories on degeneration, since to Firmin, the mulatto is proof of racial equality since his presumed intellectual equality with the white forebear could only happen if the black parent is also as intelligent.
However, what interests me beyond the ways in which Gobineau and Haitian writers used the example of Haiti in their theories of race, is to what extent Gobineau's work may have influenced Dominican writers in the 19th century (for Balaguer, it is obvious, but he represents the 20th century). For example, in Pedro Francisco Bonó's well-known essay on Haiti and the Dominican Republic, as well as some of his other writings, Haiti represents racial exclusivism in which the only mixed-race persons represent civilization. The Dominican Republic, on the other hand, possesses cosmopolitan tendencies and is open to all races, which echoes Gobineau's perception of Haiti as racially exclusive, xenophobic, savage, and despotic. Of course, Dominican writers also drew on other French and European writers when it comes to Haiti, but one cannot help but think Gobineau, whose views on racial miscegenation were nuanced, could be appropriated to defend mestizaje for those in the Hispanic Caribbean while maintaining certain racist or racialist beliefs. If, for example, one reads Dominican writers of the late 19th century in light of Gobineau, Bonneau, St. Remy, or Benjamin Hunt, how does that change elite narratives of national identity, race, and the Caribbean? Is Caribbean mestizaje as problematic as that of the Latin American mainland?
Works Consulted
Bonó, Pedro F, and Demorizi E. Rodríguez. Papeles De Pedro F. Bonó. Para La Historia De Las Ideas Políticas en Santo Domingo. Santo Domingo, R.D, 1964.
Firmin, Joseph-Anténor. The Equality of the Human Races. Trans. Asselin Charles. New York: Garland, 2000.
Gobineau, Arthur. The Inequality of Human Races. Los Angeles: Noontide Press, 1966.
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