Evolution and Racism: Bodysnatching

Bodysnatching and the Australian Aborigines

In the late 1800's and early 1900's 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 the remains of 15,000 individuals of various races and 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 appeared to describe 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') came to Australia and 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."

The above quotes and paraphrases are from (Creation ex nihilo, Vol 14, No.
2, 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, No. 2, March - May 1992, pg. 16-18.

Continue with: The Case of Ota Benga

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