With an archeological compendium of Ethiopian
and Egyptian Civilization
From Years of Careful Examination and Enquiry by Martin R.
Delany
Formerly Physician, Surgeon, and Practitioner in the Diseases of Women and Children; Member of the International Statistical Congress, London, His Royal Highness Albert Prince Consort of England, President; Member of the National for the Promotion of Social Science, and Member of the Social Science Congress, Glasgow, Scotland, 1860, Rt. Honorable Henry Lord Brougham and Vaux, President; late Major in the United States Army, now one of the Justices of Charleston, by Commission of the Governor
Philadelphia
Harper and Brother, Publishers, No. 413 Walnut Street, 1879
To Right Honorable the Earl of Shaftesbury; Member of Her Brittanic Majesty's Privy Council; Knight of the Most Honorable Order of the Garter; Member of the Royal Society; Member and Patron of most of the British Institutions of Benevolence and Social Science, whether in England, Scotland or Ireland, this simple Treatise is most gratefully inscribed.
His Lordship will permit one whose obscurity and humble position in life, His Lordship is not expected to remember; but one who never can forget, that whether in the person of an escaping Hungarian Refugee, struggling Italian, obscure African Explorer of African descent, or Freedmen Jubilee Singers, in His Lordship all races have ever found one ready to stretch forth his hand, and reach down from his height and if possible, lift them up to his elevated position.
When a stranger and unknown, it was by the generosity of His Lordship, that the writer of this was forced to take a position among scientists in discussions of a learned council, for which no attainments that he possessed could have induced him to claim a fitness, which at once gave him an unmerited place among the learned men of Europe.
Again by the generosity of His Lordship, and that of the great hearted nobleman, the Rt. Hon. Henry Lord Brougham and Vaux Ex High Lord Chancellor, his humble name was favorably brought before the House of Lords, an honor that might be coveted by any man, however elevated.
It is for favors such as these, that his Lordship is begged to permit, a liberty which may be difficult to discern, whether it partakes most of presumption or impertinence. And the writer may dare venture to claim the moral aid of His Lordship, in this his second adventure, in the regeneration of his Race and Fatherland, and that Race the attainment of a promised inheritance.
He begs His Lordship's most obliged, grateful, and very humble servant,
Charleston, S.C., May 6th, 1878
I. The Origin of Races and Color
II. The Creation of Man
III. The Original Man
IV. The Family of Noah
V. The Origin of Races
VI. How Color Originates
VII. Special Explanation
VIII.The Progress of Races
IX. Progress of the Black Race
X. Their Religious Polity
XI. Progress in Literature
XII. Their Religious Polity
XIII.Who Were the Gods
XIV. Wisdom of Ethiopia and Egypt
XV. Garden of the Hesperides
XVI. Serpent of the Garden
XVII.Modern and Ancient Ethiopia
XVIIIComparative Elements of Civilization
In presenting to the scientific and serious enquirer such a work as this, I may venture the opinion, that for the first time, public attention has been called to facts, essential to a satisfactory solution of the all important question in social science, so befittingly put forth by the Duke of Argyll, in his ethnological enquiry, Primeval Man: "That question is not the rise of Kingdoms, but the Origin of Races. . . When and how did they begin? And in this feature of color it is remarkable that we have every possible variety of tint from the fairest to the blackest races, so that the one extreme passes into the other by small and insensible gradations."
This then is the great mystery which this little treatise proposes to solve, as well as to show the first steps in the progress of Civilization, the origin and institution of Letters and Literature. On the delicate subject of the integrity of the Races, let it be also understood that we propose, so far as the Pure Races are concerned, to have once and forever settled that they are indestructible, as proven in this treatise. That, as in the substance and science of Chemistry, the two extremes, saccharine and acid, the most intense sweetness and the most intense sourness, are produced by the same material and essential properties, so is it in the substance and science of animal chemistry in the human family in relation to color or complexion of the skin. That the two extremes of color, from the most negative white, "including every possible variety of tint," up to the blackest are all produced by the same material and essential properties of color.
This much I have deemed it proper as a Preface to add, to prepare the mind of the reader for an enquiry which I may venture to say, he will not regret having made, and which may induce others of higher attainments to prosecute the subject to different conclusions. If in this I have been successful, in aiding to find the key to the discovery of the all important subject of variety of complexions or Origin of Races and Color, however little that aid, I shall have reached the zenith of my desire. Charleston, May 6th, 1878.
This is a subject of very great interest to social science, which as yet has not been satisfactorily treated. We propose in this enquiry, to give our deductions and conclusions, after mature deliberation and much research.
The Singular and Plural theories of the Creation or Origin of Man, have been fully examined and duly considered, accepting the Mosaic or Bible Record, as our basis, without an allusion to the Development theory.
The theory of Champollion, Nott, Gliddon, and others, of the Three Creations of Man; one Black, second Yellow, and the last White, we discard and shall not combat as a theory, only as it shall be refuted in the general deductions of this treatise. We have named these Three Races, in the order which they are said to have been created, the Black being first, consequently the oldest of the Human Family.
In treating on the Unity of Races as descended from one parentage, we shall make no apology for a liberal use of Creation, as learned from the Bible. In this, we find abundant proof to sustain the position in favor of the Unity of the Human Race. Upon this subject ethnologists and able historians frequently seem to be at sea, without chart or compass, with disabled helm, floating on the bosum of chance, hoping to touch some point of safety; but with trusty helm and well set compass, we have no fears with regard to a direct and speedy arrival, into the haven.
Man, according to Biblical history, commenced his existence in the Creation of Adam. This narration is acceptable to us. The descendants of Adam must have been very numerous, as we read of peoples which we cannot comprehend as having had an existence, as "in the land of Nod, on the east of Eden, whither Cain went from the presence of the Lord and dwelt," where we are told his wife bore Enoch, his first born, though until this circumstance, had we known of the existence of but one woman, Eve the first and mother of Cain, who did not even have a daughter, so far as Moses has informed us in Genesis.
This history of Man from Adam to Noah is very short, as given by Moses in the first chapter in the Bible, and though we learn of the existence of communities and cities, as the first city "Enoch," built by Cain in the land of Nod, called after his first born; for aught we know, there were no legally established general regulations, but each head of a family ruled his own household, according to traditional customs, his own desires or notions of propriety, or as circumstances or necessity required.
This view requires a division into periods of the historical events, from the Creation of Man, till after the confusion of tongues, and the dispersion of the people from the Tower of Babel. During the abode of Adam and Even in the Garden of Paradise, we shall call the period of the "Original Law;" from going out of the Garden till the dispersion from the Tower, the period of the "Law of Necessity;" and after the dispersion on the Plains of Shinar, the period of "Municipal Law."
