Hottentots by Paul Di Filippo. Short summary

5 seconds

The main character is Louis Agassiz. This 40-year-old man was born in Switzerland and spent some time in the United States. He was a zoological scientist. Louis sincerely hated members of the black race.

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The main character is Louis Agassiz. He is a native of Switzerland who had a brilliant scientific career and became an authority in such fields as zoology, ichthyology, and paleontology. He was 40 years old and had recently been in the United States for almost a full year. Agassiz hated black people and treated them as if they were not human at all.

Louis’ comrade and colleague, Samuel Morton, collected skulls. Morton wished after the death of the main character to get the skull of the latter, as he considered it an extremely valuable specimen.

In one of his letters, the scholar-zoologist told his mother, Rosa, about the first time he encountered a black man. Agassiz told her that he did not like the servants who worked in one of the hotels in Philadelphia, where he had to stay. According to the main character’s recollections, he looked with pity upon these «degenerate creatures.