How does one reconcile Wallaces apparent respect for native peoples with his sometimes stated position that the European powers were “superior” to them?
Easily, actually, though his position has frequently been manipulated by later workers to suit the needs of various preconceived arguments. There can be no doubt that Wallace not only respected societally more primitive (that is, as compared with the technologically more sophisticated Western Europeans) peoples, but believed them to be, on the average, quite on a par morally and ethically with Westerners. Nevertheless, he recognized that Westerners were certainly “superior,” if only to the extent that they were capable of militarily and culturally overwhelming “less advanced” societies (and indeed often did). Thus, he was not relaying a “might makes right” kind of thinking, but instead a simple factual assessment of the power structure involved. Consider Wallace’s reply to a question posed about his famous 1864 essay ‘The Origin of Human Races and the Antiquity of Man . . .’ (S93, p. clxxxiii): “Now, it appears to me that the mere fact of one race supplanting another proves their super
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