Johann Friedrich Blumenbach - Blumenbach's Racial Classification System

Blumenbach's Racial Classification System

Blumenbach divided the human species into five races in 1779, later founded on crania research (description of human skulls), and called them (1793/1795):

• the Caucasian race or white race
• the Mongolian or yellow race
• the Malayan or brown race
• the Ethiopian, or black race
• the American or red race.

His classification of Mongolian race included all East Asians and some Central Asians. Blumenbach excluded peoples of Southeast Asian islands and Pacific Islanders from his definition in 1779, as he considered them to be part of the Malay race. He considered American Indians to be part of the American (Indigenous peoples) race. He did not think they were inferior to the Caucasian race, and were potentially good members of society. He included the peoples of sub-Saharan Africa in the Negro or black race.

Blumenbach argued that physical characteristics like skin color, cranial profile, etc., depended on geography, diet, and mannerism.

Blumenbach's work included his description of sixty human crania (skulls) published originally in fascicules as Decas craniorum (Göttingen, 1790–1828). This was a founding work for other scientists in the field of craniometry.

Further anatomical study led him to the conclusion that 'individual Africans differ as much, or even more, from other individual Africans as Europeans differ from Europeans'. Furthermore he concluded that Africans were not inferior to the rest of mankind 'concerning healthy faculties of understanding, excellent natural talents and mental capacities'.

"Finally, I am of opinion that after all these numerous instances I have brought together of negroes of capacity, it would not be difficult to mention entire well-known provinces of Europe, from out of which you would not easily expect to obtain off-hand such good authors, poets, philosophers, and correspondents of the Paris Academy; and on the other hand, there is no so-called savage nation known under the sun which has so much distinguished itself by such examples of perfectibility and original capacity for scientific culture, and thereby attached itself so closely to the most civilized nations of the earth, as the Negro."

These ideas were far less influential. His ideas were adopted by other researchers and encouraged scientific racism. Blumenbach's work was used by many biologists and comparative anatomists in the nineteenth century who were interested in the origin of races: Wells, Lawrence, Prichard, Huxley and William Flower are good examples of his influence on human biology.

Regarding human origins, Blumenbach believed the first humans had originated in Asia, (see Asia hypothesis).