Making Men
The book “Making Men: Enlightenment Ideas of Racial Engineering” by William Max Nelson discusses the prospect of human eugenic engineering and how it was widely believed in the 19th and 20th centuries that some races were superior to others. The article exposes the inherently racist beliefs of the genealogical scientists in the French Caribbean colony of Saint-Domingue, where experimentation was performed on the local population. Nelson offers a harrowing insight into the eugenics plan and recognizes the huge social impact that it placed on the indigenous people. The author explains the activities perpetrated by the French colonial regime in its control breeding program. Nelson offers a detailed account of the genesis of the exercise, which was seen as a way of solving the stability problem that had affected the region following the Seven Years War. The book underlines the effectiveness of the approach and its historically renowned application by the European power. The eugenics program was widely adopted by French authorities worldwide. The experiment involved identifying members of the indigenous community that were considered influential yet sympathetic to the French cause and convincing them to procreate with the Europeans. The resulting offspring would have both French and native genetic characteristics and were expected to be aligned to the European colonial agenda. The program had an immense impact on the French foreign policy as it created a community of sympathizers among the local communities, thus, making it difficult to unit and confront the colonial invasion. The book highlights the genesis of the program where a nobleman from Alsace visits Saint Domingue and is surprised by the hatred of the local people towards French occupation. The nobleman suggests that creating a mixed-race would dilute the vitriol of the local people and make them empathetic to the colonial regime. The idea is opposed by the local European leadership, who take it jokingly as it had never been achieved before. Nelson notes that the idea quickly evolved as sexual relations among the French and the locals were already prevalent.
The book explains the practice evolved into human trafficking, and Mulato children would be sold to French authorities or slave merchants, at times by their own white parents. The mixed-race individuals would be settled by the state and would live alongside the population as free people. Nelson is not clear in his explanation of whether the Mulatos were be bred specifically to be sold or the exchange was due to the minors being unwanted by their parents. The article discloses that the practice would be refined further with selective breeding being pursued. The project was perceived as a panacea to the region’s most significant military, social, and political problems. Subsequently, genetic engineering began being practiced as a way of instituting racial hierarchy. Agendas of race begun being actively forwarded, and the people were indoctrinated to believe the lighter the skin color, the greater the intelligence of the people. The locals were at the bottom of the social stratum, with the Mulatos in the middle and the Caucasian imperialists at the top. The ideas would be viciously reinforced both as a means of encouraging interbreeding and maintaining the status quo. Nelson observes that the Saint-Domingue experiment would lay the groundwork for exploring the perception of race as a measure of intelligence and as a basis for segregation in the subsequent centuries.
The book’s major weaknesses are offering inconclusive discussions in some of its major topics, such as the perception of Mulatos by the locals at the beginning of the program and fails to offer a sequential view of the events that occurred following the commencement of the project until its adoption as conventional practice.