Darwin’s Sacred Cause, by Adrian Desmond and James Moore
Darwin: A Life in Poems, by Ruth Padel
In 1858, on the brink of publishing his theory of evolution, which I discussed here three weeks ago, Charles Darwin took a hydropathic rest cure at Moor Park, near Farnham in Surrey. While walking on the sandy heath, he caught a glimpse of ‘the rare Slave-making Ant & saw the little black niggers in their Master’s nests’. A certain species of red ant kidnaps the young of a smaller black ant and rears them as unwitting slave workers in the service of the red queen. Darwin had heard about this phenomenon but had not till then seen it.
Darwin’s upbringing had been steeped in the anti-slavery movement. One grandfather, Erasmus Darwin, had thundered poetically:
Hear, oh, BRITANNIA! potent Queen of
isles,
On whom fair Art and meek Religion smiles,
Now AFRIC’S coasts thy craftier sons invade
With murder, rapine, theft — and call it
Trade!
The SLAVE, in chains, on supplicating knee,
Spreads his wide arms, and lifts his eyes to
Thee;
With hunger pale, with wounds and toil
oppress’d,
‘ARE WE NOT BRETHREN?’ Sorrow choaks the rest.
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