PROFESSOR TIEDEMANN ON THE BRAIN OF THE NEGRO. 
521 
of the researches of Thunberg*, Long-}-, Jefferson;};, Estwick, Chatelux, and others. 
Many of them deny that the Negro is a reasonable being, and they say that all Ne- 
groes are vicious, malignant, perverse, treacherous, and faithless. They observe, 
that the understanding of the Negro is not capable of improvement, that their temper 
and disposition are incorrigible, and that they are incapable of civilization. Some 
have even believed the falsely supposed natural inferiority of the intellectual and 
moral faculties of the Ethiopian race, to be an excuse for slavery. 
The character of the Negroes, as described by such authors, is the result of slavery 
and inhuman treatment, to which they are exposed in the colonies, as Ramsay §, 
Beckford||, Dickson^]", Hawker**, T. Clarkson F. Newton^, G. Pinchant§§, 
and the official documents |||| laid before the House of Commons, have sufficiently 
proved. The behaviour of the Negroes in a state of slavery accords with the treat- 
ment they receive from their white masters. This is asserted on the authority of 
Beattie, Imlay^J, B. Edwards***, and others. The disposition of the poor Negro 
slaves is in general distrustful and cowardly; for so degrading is the nature of slavery, 
that the fortitude of the mind is lost, and its free agency restrained. A very keen 
observer ^ says: “ The feelings of the Negroes are extremely acute. According 
to the manner in which they are treated they are gay or melancholy, laborious or 
* Thunberg says, “ It may indeed be alleged that the inhabitants of the warmer climates have a dull torpftl 
brain, and are less keen and sharp than the Europeans. They have a power of thinking, but not profoundly, 
and consequently conversation among them is rather trifling. They are in general idle, sleepy, heavy, and 
lascivious. To these qualities the heat of the climate itself inclines them; and without insulting the dark 
brown inhabitants of the East Indies, one may truly say that there is a greater difference between them and 
the Europeans than between them and the Monkeys.” 
f The History of Jamaica, tom. ii. pp. 335, 374. London, 1774. 
I Notes on the State of Virginia, p. 232. London, 1787. Jefferson, speaking of the Negroes, says, 
“ Comparing them by their faculties of memory, reason, and imagination, it appears to me that in memory 
they are equal to the Whites, in reason much inferior, as I think one could scarcely be found capable of tracing 
and comprehending the investigation of Euclid ; and that in imagination they are dull, tasteless, and anomalous. 
Indeed it may be reckoned unfair to compare the capacity of Africans with that of Europeans, who have been 
so long civilized ; but it cannot be reckoned so in comparing them to the American Indians.” 
§ Essay on the Treatment and Conversion of African Slaves. London, 1784. 
|| Remarks upon the Situation of the Negroes in Jamaica, p. 84. London, 1788. 
Letters on Slavery, p. 20. London, 1789. 
** Sermon. London, 1789. 
ft Essay on the Slavery and Commerce of the Human Species. 
Thoughts upon Slavery. 
§§ Notes on the West Indies. 
1111 The horrors of the Negro Slavery existing in our West Indian Islands, irrefragably demonstrated from 
official documents recently presented to the House of Commons. London, 1805. 8°. 
A Topographical Description of the Western Territory of North America. London, 1793. 8°, 
*** The History, Civil and Commercial, of the British West Indies. London, 1819. 
ttt Histoire des Antilles, p. 483. 
MDCCCXXXVI. 3 X 
