Talk about this Exciting Book whose and why a hien chapter from the 18th century invention race. This came out with harvard in 2022 and i love to get started by asking you about the genesis of this project. How how did this project come about. Well thanks its kind of a long story and a story involves the most important kind of person in the project. And thats Henry Louis Gates jr. Apparently, he reading an earlier book that i wrote called the anatomy of blackness that mentioned this debate or this contest which took place at the Bordeaux Academy of sciences. And ill get back to that second and at the same time, he was already thinking about doing a project this, and he just gave me a phone call out of the blue is an amazing day where he said, listen, im going to do a book and im going to call whos black and why about this contest . That took place at the Bordeaux Academy of sciences in 1741, and we worked on it very closely for two years, and it just came out in paperback, by the way. Oh, exciting. Thats fantastic. Didnt know that. Wonderful. Well, listen, so what id love to know is if you can give us a bit of Background Information on, the historical circumstances surrounding ending this essay, bring us back to france in the 1740s. What is happening in how can we understand the broader circumstances . How big is france . How how can we dive into this moment in time . Well, theres a lot to cover. But lets start first with some demographics. A good question. France is a very, very big country in the 18th century. Its actually the third Biggest Country in the world, which hard to wow. Yeah. Would 25 Million People at the time you think that england is about six or 7 Million People and spain about the same thing. And here in north america there are a Million People living along the east coast, not counting native americans. And that includes enslaved people as well. So really numbers are really quite of of whats going to happen during the 18th century and i think when it gets bordeaux, which is the place that well be talking about quite a bit, some background is useful there to bordeaux is has is this academy in a scientific Academy Scientific academies rose up almost in opposition universities during the 18th century. The Bordeaux Academy of sciences was founded in 1713 by a group of, nobles and aristocrats and members of parliament. They met pretty much sunday for the next 90 years or so and or 80 years or so. And whats amazing about the scientific is that they got together bunch of gentlemen, naturalists, to consult with each other and think about the Big Questions of the day. And these questions were generally much more naturalistic than what was going on in universities. As i said, universities were more like almost like Vocational Schools. The university of paris produced lawyers and theologians and doctors, etc. The various faculty did that, whereas the scientific academies would take up these questions. They were much more interested in interested in research and experimentation than what was going on in the universities or universities, replicated knowledge and academies were trying to create knowledge. And so it was that that these academicians would create these contests on an annual basis. And during the 1720s and 1730s they announced where they would give a pretty big cash prize of about 300 pounds a year each, each contest. And in 1739, they got the idea of reading the contest on the nature and the and the causes of black skin and textured african hair. And they sent it around in the greatest or the most popular scientific journal of the time, the genealogy sabel all around europe. And they got six essays that came in in 1741, two years later. My goodness so so lets take a pause for a second. Just understand bordeaux. So this location, bordeaux, what is about that city specifically . Why this particular academy be asking this question about . Black skin and hair. Now, bordeaux during the 18th century was the second biggest city in it, had a population of about between, you know during the 18th century varied from about 85,000 to maybe 105,000 or Something Like that. And it as it became more and more popular, obviously, was a Larger Population and the bordeaux is slightly in the interior of france, but its linked by the gowland river to the atlantic. And so it was a very, very important port city. And we all think about bordeaux and bordeaux wine. Bordeaux was exporting wine all over europe during the 18th century. It was making a lot of money on that, but it also had very, very ties with frances colonies. And we dont think too much about the french caribbean, except who were taking cruises. But france had some major overseas colonies. The 18th century in guadeloupe what we call saint kitts now, or Saint Christopher martinique. Martinique was the most important island for a long time. And then saintdomingue, which is haiti and bordeaux, was not involved in the slave trade on the same level, say not, but it was certainly involved with the slave trade. It was making much money though, from wine, other forms of trade. It didnt really get involved in, the slave trade until now on a large scale, until later in the century so again, in terms of the slave trade bordeaux certainly much important figure toward the end of the century, it was deporting three or 4000 africans to caribbean. At the end of was the 1789 1790, early on it was more like 500 or a thousand, but in total bordeaux deported. 150,000 africans to the new and some of the pacific colonies. Well, so when you think about these numbers, again, asked about numbers, 150,000 people is, you know, one and a half times the total population in bordeaux. So bordeaux got involved. In this, you know, the 16, 17th century and, exported slaves into the 19th century. Wow. So tell me if academicians took interest in this subject bordeaux is a slave trading port, also a major port of trade . Are there black people, bordeaux. Yeah, i think thats one of the the hidden parts of this contest theoretically, this contest was a political it didnt really talk about the slave trade at all. It was what is the source of black skin and black hair. But anyone Walking Around bordeaux in the 18th century would have seen no especially down toward the port weve seen a handful of people working ships. The we estimate that there were probably 5000 people people of african descent that went through bordeaux during the 18th century. There might be two or 300. There are any given time, as i said, working in warehouses, working in ports or working as valet. Sometimes captains or planters, rich planters. Theyre phenomenally rich, i think kind of Silicon Valley rich would come back to bordeaux and build fantasy stick townhouses and one of the things they could allow them to show their wealth was having enslaved africans working for them. Wow. So yes, there are a lot of africans or people of african descent, socalled creole africans, coming back to bordeaux from the from the caribbean. Wow. And you also talk about this in the book. There are there some famous families who come through and are located there. Right. The the family the haitian revolutionary toussaint louverture, you they come through with that, correct . Yeah. That happens after the haitian revolution. Its actually quite interesting that that at that occurred because bordeaux was in such dire straits after the the revolution. So were, you know, we cut now to 18 offerings, you know, 70 years after the contest, more or less at this point, the bordeauxs trade has plummeted because bordeaux owned more than half of the sugar plantations on. Saintdomingue and haiti. Wow. So of its wealth was coming from that and not only from sugar but from the direct trade. So bordeaux is manufacturing guns and armaments, Leather Goods and tools and so on and so forth and. Then colonial commodities were coming into the city. But yes, its true that the the children of toussaint came to bordeaux himself, had already, by that time, sent off to a french prison to die in the early 19th century. Wow. Incredible to be layering on this part of the history of bordeaux to what what many of us already know and think about, which is wine to think of this is just such a port city and producer of goods that circulating in the colonial world and also where slavery, as youre saying, is a source ring of wealth and status. These families can. You know, that that they that they have this wealth that they that they are part of this system. And so in that way that may have brought them to this interest. Its very interesting that step toward an involvement and wanting think about pose that question about black skin hair. Yes we see this particularly in the art of time period. You can see if you go to the Bordeaux Museum of art, you can see occasionally in certain rooms youll see portraits of rich bordeaux dignitaries. And some of them they have these these these black families with them or children raised almost like toys in some of these households. Oh, wow. My goodness. Yes, that is fascinating. And it brings me to another question which youre indicating here about racial thinking what is going on here . Theres fascination. Youre saying in all that is evident in other domains in art history probably also colonial products of different sorts that provides this evidence that are thinking maybe in some way about race. Yeah so question of race is at the of the contest. Its also at the heart of the book. During the 18th century we talk lot about the invention o race, which is what part of this, the title of the book we the the idea that race actually being fabricated during the 18th century i think one of the great thing great kind of mysteries of our lives these days that we talk about race all the time but we dont know really where it came from. Were of assumed that the xenophobia and the abuses of the past have always been. And they have and theres always been of an intellectual infrastructure for that. The notion race. But the notion of race way we understand it right now is something that about during the 18th century and this is actually a micro history and a macro history of that phenomenon. You think about it because you have a contest and a contest is not simply a contest. It is a science before academy or science in general claiming the right to to determine what exactly . Each category human on the planet was worth and what its significance was. And what its origin was for the longest time, for the race didnt mean race in the same way we understand it. If you said the word race in 1720 or 1680, most people would say we think that, oh, maybe that person is talking about a race of dogs or races, horses or animals or possibly a race kings or race of nobles. And so there is the idea of lineage and bloodline. But you never talked about groups of people as races the terms used for, say, the inhabitants. Subsaharan africa might be nations, peoples or as things became a bit closer to Natural History and science, maybe varieties and the word varieties is a really interesting word. Its kind of closer to reality in some ways, because the word variety is a botanical term, which implies cross fertilization and whole of different possibilities and phenotypes, whereas the word race, a certain limited number of groups and lineages its a its a zoological. So youll that the the contest ask for you know what is the source of race its asking about skin is asking about hair but its really asking about something were called what we would call race. Now because its its science claiming the right to to do to say who people are. As i just said. Now, there are a lot of things that we see in the essays which are emblematic of what happen farther in the century. Its really great because this is a almost like a focus group of race, if you want to call it that, because were getting a Cross Section of what people are thinking. 1739 1740 and they send the essays. This is very different from, a more horizontal understanding of history where we look at the ideas of through time here were talking about six people, theologians and climate theorists anatomists and people much more interested in the taxonomy, all supplying their own answers to this question. Well, yes, so, so lets lets talk about contest in more depth so. So what what again, was the exact wording of the question. Yes. So this is important. What is the source of the degeneration of african skin and african hair . Not all words, not simply what are the causes, but what is the degeneration. And here we get into something thats a little bit technical. So i why do it bring us into the technical okay. So for the longest time, as i said, this is a moment when science is claiming the right, but theyre claiming the right from theology. From from religion and particularly catholicism and from christianity for the longest time, the jurisdiction the people had jurisdiction over the question of human categories were theologians or the church in general. And the one of the big sources for this is, the Old Testament story of noah and his three sons. So noah, his ark lands presumably in the caucasus and is three kids are hanging out after. This is all over noah japheth and shem are hanging out and noah, a completely drunk and his two of his sons look away from his nakedness. And the third son ham happens to look at when hes drunk. And this is a bad idea because. When noah wakes up, he curses and in fact curses the descendants of him. And this is the curse of him, which marks him and makes his sons the the servants of servants. So heres this kind of a justification both for a mark, which is coloration and also the idea that people who are black might be slaves. Now, this is really not said in the bible later, biblical exegesis will say this. But the good part of, the bible, the story is that people are related. You think about it, there is one faith and theres one god and theres one people and the universe wisdom of christianity and catholicism such that they want to have this message for everybody, no matter what the colors are. And so this biblical idea infuses partially depends on whos talking, whos doing the thinking. Fuzes with environmental climate theory of antiquity. So you get the bible on the one hand, and then climate theory. So people move and then they kind of change who who as the climate. Now to get to the get to the head to to the contest, what happens is that . They did not want to come with a contest which encouraged people to to say that there are different species of people they didnt want to contradict the bible. So even though its a scientific contest they said this is about degeneration and degeneration is a fancy word for saying that you have an original prototype race of people wiped. Paul, who moved the globe and then degenerated different climates. Now we probably have heard the word degenerate, moral degenerate. Its the idea that there was something pure and original and then you become worse afterwards. So degeneration is a negative out of notion. So theres a built in that the winning essay for this contest will be somebody who says who explains how africans degenerated in the torrid zone or west africa. Wow is so fascinating. So a way in which we see an an early but very clear of what we would call today White Supremacy that whiteness is the supreme is the best and that anything else is is some layer or type of degeneration from from that original and best being. I think that went without saying for this group of 40 members of the Bordeaux Academy of sciences, when they put this together, the idea that that the white, white people might say race. Yeah, but it really essentially is function as a race. The white race was the first and the best wow, wow absolute fascinating that this happening already. So deep into the past. Yes its its its interesting how people responded to this question not. Everybody, as you know, often is the case in such contest and people ask questions. They didnt answer the question correctly or in the same way that the bordeaux people were looking for. So there were generally five different tendencies. So i said, there are 16 essays that came from as far afield as sweden ireland and germany, a lot from france, half were in french, half were in latin. Wow. There were a number of kind of crazy religious explanations. And when i say crazy or crazy because they they were not related directly to the bible but somebody is own interpretation of the bible mixed in with a little bit of Climate Science or a little of the anatomy, but the religious some of the religious ideas, which are actually quite included, the idea that maybe there was a black adam to begin with, maybe god was disappointed with africans and made them mark them for their sins. Moral perversity, maybe blackness was a gift from to protect people from the sun. There are a lot of religious explanations that were actually submitted and thats one of the categories is sort of the religious arts the religious approach answering that question, even though youre saying a lot of those explanations were highly speculative, imaginative and very, very personal interpretations of of sacred texts. Yeah. And i think its important to note that the people who did this were not interested africans. They were interested in preserving the jurisdiction of religion over the question humankind. Thats i think we talk about the 18 century as being an antwerp centric century, the century of humanism, where people start concentrating much up on the human turning their backs on scripture, turning their backs on received ideas, starting to concentrate on people themselves. You know, Alexander Pope said the proper study of mankind is, man, this is the idea. These people who are sending in the religious explanations didnt want that to happen. So thats the first category. And i suspect the the academy just dumped those explanations. In the archives. You can see they would say now excluded from the context. Wow. So are they. Did they annotate the essay then or they take their own notes that would say no, not this one. I of found the precede things for when they were trying to decide by the contest there was such chicken scratch. I couldnt understand a word thing and it sounded my heart leapt. I said, im