via Wikimedia
Phrenology, the study of skull shapes used to draw conclusions about character and behavior in humans, was still a newbie on the science scene in the early 1800s.
But that didn’t stop Kentucky slave owner Charles Caldwell from proclaiming himself an expert in the subject and using it to promote this twisted agenda.
Caldwell preached that Africans were “naturally” submissive, weak-minded, and harmless against the white man and “must have a master” to provide direction and meet basic needs - because of what phrenology argued were character-influencing brain shapes.
While he enthusiastically used the science to exploit the labor of enslaved people, there were many abolitionists who also used phrenology to support their petitions to free the enslaved.
These same phrenological talking points were used by abolitionists “on our side” to insist that African people were too timid and weak by nature to revolt or seek revenge if granted freedom and that such a people deserved charity, not abuse.
All told, this quack science was reinforcing the notion that Black people were mentally inferior to white people in general and hardly a threat to any society that profited from denouncing their humanity.
In the late 1800s phrenology was finally found to be unscientific and useless. It was ultimately abandoned by all serious scientists. However, the harmful myths it helped spread are the basis for disrespectful stereotypes, political decisions, and even genocides today.