If we created a ranking of books determined by the ratio of their historical,

cultural and literary value on the one hand to the degree to which they been

unjustly forgotten by posterity on the other, then certainly De l’égalité des races

humaines by the Haitian anthropologist and statesman Anténor Firmin (1850-1911)

would finish near the top of the list. This 660-page tome was published in Paris in

1885. Though some recent scholars have come a long a way towards restoring

Firmin to his rightful place in a global intellectual history, notably Carolyn Fluehr-

Lobban for an Anglo-American academic readership and Ghislaine Géloine for our

French counterparts, along with scholars such as Daniel Desormeaux, more work

needs to be done to restore Firmin to his rightful place. (It should be said however,

that Haitians have never neglected their august countryman and that the lion’s

share of essays and biographies about Firmin are indeed written by Haitians, such

as Jean Price-Mars and Pradel Pompilus.)

The understood interlocutors of Firmin’s book were the members of the

Société d’anthropologie de Paris that included among its ranks two Haitians, Firmin,

(exiled in Paris from the government of Lysius Salomon), and Louis-Joseph Janvier, a

Haitian doctor who studied medicine in Paris and who introduced Firmin to the

Société. The Société published an annual Bulletin that included a directory of its

members, the proceedings of their bi-monthly meetings including a transcription of

the keynote addresses along with a summary of the discussion that followed.

Firmin’s name is first mentioned in the Bulletin in the 1884 edition, under the

subheading, “Candidatures”:

…et Firmin (Anthénor) [sic], avocat au cap haïtien (Haïti), présenté par MM. de Mortillet, Aubertin et Janvier, demandent le titre de membres titulaires (574)

In the 1885 meetings Bulletin that appear subsequently, Firmin’s name appears in

the directory of the société under the heading “membres titulaires”, or permanent or

“tenured” members with the appropriate academic credentials:

Firmin (Anthénor [sic]), avocat au cap Haïtien, 5, rue de Feuillantines.

(17 juillet 1881).

In the same year, in the meeting of October 1, the Bulletin notes the reception of

Firmin’s book by the Société. In the years immediately following the notice of the

book’s reception, there are no interventions by Firmin or any other member

regarding De l’égalité des races humaines, nor are there any reviews,

acknowledgment, or mention of De l’égalité des races humaines, despite the central

thematic relevance of the book’s topic and the substantial interlocution that Firmin

proffers to some of the most notable of the Société’s luminaries, such as Paul Broca,

the director of the Bulletin and one of its most visible members Jean-Louis Armand

de Quatrefages. This is surprising indeed and in fact a mystery in the historical

record. One might contrast the silence enveloping Firmin’s book with Louis-Joseph

Janvier’s intervention on his own behalf on April 17, 1884, in which he actually read

aloud the conclusion of his article, “M. Renan et l’égalité des races,” a rebuttal to the

racist views of the French philosopher and linguist Ernest Renan. (Bulletin, 1884,

283-284).1 If the Société d’Anthropologie de Paris, would admit Firmin, a black

1 The resemblance of Janvier’s discourse to that of Firmin’s makes it worthy of citing at length: “Au fond, quoi qu’en dise M. Renan, toutes les race sont égales; et s’il y a eu des événements déplorables qui ont pu retarder l’éclosion et la croissance intellectuelle de l’une d’elles, tandis qu’ils favorisent le rapide essor d’une autre, il

Haitian, as a full-fledged member, despite the deeply-rooted anthropological

conviction of the time that the black “race” was inferior to the white one, why would

Firmin’s book elicit no response, review or commentary for the Society’s members?

Especially when we consider the very first article listed under the “Titre Premier-But

et Organization De La Société,” a list of guiding principles and procedural norms

that appeared in the opening pages of every publication of the Bulletin:

ARTICLE 1ER.—La Société d’anthropologie de Paris a pour but l’étude scientifique des races humaines. Given the interventions, debates and discussions that took place during the

Société’s meetings, the absolute silence that greeted Firmin’s book, and the silence

of Firmin himself in the 1880s is surprising. Carolyn Fluehr-Lobbanl, echoing Jean

Price Mars, juxtaposes the icy reception of Firmin in a causal relationship with the

roar of the Berlin Congress 1884-1885, in which the neo-imperial powers of Europe

parceled up Africa for their civilizing missions and colonial conquest. (Fluehr-

Lobban, xxxv). Firmin’s arguments, especially the long chapter arguing for the

specifically Black African racial demographic of ancient Egyptian civilization, “had

provoked a scandal,” according to Price-Mars, thought it appears that he is speaking

conjecturally (Price-Mars, 155). In the historical record encapsulated by the

Bulletins, the scandal is one of silence. While no doubt the vast majority of the

members of the Société d’Anthropologie de Paris, and Ernest Renan’s views on this

subject can be viewed as representative, would have approve of these so-called

civilizing excursion into Africa, since they were convinced of the racial inferiority of

est aussi des circonstances inéluctables qui président à l’évolution graduelle des nations, à leur ascension vers la civilisation et à leur avènement successif à la direction du monde.” 284.

its inhabitants, it seems unlikely to me that any of them saw in Firmin’s study a

threat to the impending neo-colonial order and would have therefore plotted to

relegate Firmin to oblivion with a conspiratorial silence. A more likely explanation

for the dearth of formal responses to Firmin’s arguments were the almost violent

manner in which they discursively disrupted—the real scandal—the established

tenets of anthropological thought. In his apotheosis of black ancient Egypt, his

patient and rigorous debunking of the pseudo-scientific conclusions stemming from

craniometry—the gauging, measuring and classifying of skulls as indicators of

racial superiority or inferiority—and above all, in his insistence on the evolutionary,

mutable and changing nature of the world’s civilizations and ethnicites; the impact

of environment and historical circumstances on their degree of development and

not their inherent superiority or inferiority, Firmin’s arguments, had they received

the attention of which they were unquestionably deserving from his fellow

members of the Société de Anthropologie de Paris, would have undoubtedly shaken

the foundations of anthropological knowledge in the 1880s and 90s.

In his Preface De L’Égalité des races humaines, Firmin reflects on his state of

mind as became a member of the Société and encountered that his despised notion

of the inequality of the human races was in deeply ingrained in a society of such

learned men and women:

Devenu membre de la société d’anthropologie de Paris, la chose ne devait-

elle pas paraître encore plus incompréhensible et illogique? Est-il naturel de

voir siéger dans une même société et au même titre des homes que la science

même qu’on est censé représenter semble déclarer inégaux? IX

Carolyn Fluehr-Lobban, who is almost single-handedly responsible for

introducing Firmin to a North American academic readership when she edited a

new translation of The Equality of the Human Races (translated by Asselin Charles)

in 2000, relates an anecdote about Firmin encountering Clemence Royer, a

fascinating woman who was the French translator of Charles Darwin but who,

unfortunately, was convinced of the inferiority of the Black race. Face to face with

Firmin, who was obviously an extraordinary individual, Royer, according to Fluerh-

Lobban’s source, attributed Firmin’s brilliance to the blood of his white ancestors.