Evolution and Racism - Bodysnatching and the Australian Aborigines
Recall that in the late 1800's and early 1900's the many in the scientific community viewed non-Caucasian races as evolutionary ancestors, human subspecies, and/or not quite human. As a result of this thinking humans of certain races were treated as laboratory specimens.
The Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C. holds remains of 15,000 individuals of various races. It appears that 10,000 Australian Aborigines were shipped to the British museum in an attempt to determine if they were the "missing link".
Some of the leading evolutionists of the day including anatomist Sir Richard Owen, anthropologist Sir Arthur Keith and Charles Darwin himself wanted samples. Museums were not only interested in bones, but of fresh samples and pickled Aboriginal brains and good prices were being offered. Tragically, there is evidence that Australian Aborigines may have been killed for use as specimens.
Consider these notes;
"A death bed memoir from Korah Wills, who became mayor of Bowen, Queensland, in 1866, graphically describes how he killed and dismembered a local tribesman in 1865 to provide a scientific specimen"
Edward Ramsey, curator of the Australian Museum in Sydney (1874-1894) published a museum booklet that described Aborigines as "Australian animals". It also gave instructions on how to rob graves and plug bullet wounds in freshly killed "specimens". He complained in the 1880s that a Queensland law to stop slaughtering Aborigines was affecting his supply.
Amalie Dietrich, a German evolutionist, (nicknamed the 'Angel of Black Death') asked that Aborigines be shot for specimens, so their skin could be stuffed and mounted. "Although evicted from at least one property, she shortly returned home with her specimens."
"A new South Wales missionary was a horrified witness to the slaughter by mounted police of a group of Aboriginal men, women and children. Forty-five heads were then boiled down and the best 10 skulls were packed off for overseas."
Above quotes and paraphrases are from [Creation ex nihilo, Vol 14, No2, March - May 1992, pg. 17].
This perverse tale of human debauchery can only be regarded as another bad fruit of evolutionary thought.
References:
[Creation ex nihilo, Vol 14, No2, March - May 1992, pg. 16-18].
Photo Credits:
http://www.tanja-stern.de/U-Amalie.html
http://www.mackayhistory.org/research/mayors/004_wills.html