Josiah C. Nott

Who was Josiah C. Nott?

Josiah Clark Nott was an American physician and surgeon. He was also an author of surgical, yellow fever, and racialist theories.

Nott was influenced by the racial theories of Samuel George Morton, one of the inspirators of physical anthropology. Morton collected hundreds of human skulls from around the world and tried to classify them. Morton had been among the first to claim that he could judge the intellectual capacity of a race by the cranial capacity. A large skull meant a large brain and high intellectual capacity, and a small skull indicated a small brain and decreased intellectual capacity. By studying these skulls he came to the conclusion of polygenism, that each race had a separate origin.

Nott, the owner of nine slaves, "used his influence and his science to defend the subjugation of blacks through slavery". He claimed that "the negro achieves his greatest perfection, physical and moral, and also greatest longevity, in a state of slavery".