Racial Difference in the Anglophone Caribbean

Rana Hogarth

Wellcome Collection

Tuesday, October 12, 2021 1:30 pm EDT

Join Dr Rana Hogarth to investigate the circulation of ideas about ‘innate’ racial differences in the Caribbean and beyond through the writings of British military and civilian practitioners.
 
You will learn about how ideas of racial difference emerged in the late 18th century, as well as the role they played in advancing medical knowledge and empire.
 
This talk traces the process through which British practitioners who worked and lived in the West Indies propagated the myth of innate racial difference between Black and white people, particularly through their ideas about Black troops’ susceptibility to yellow fever. These actions made up the foundation of medical evidence used to mark the Black body as peculiar and 'Other’ for years to come.