This article argues that two prominent antebellum Black physicians—James McCune Smith and Martin Delany—developed competing scientific theories of nature’s impact on the human body in response to the climatic theories of the American Colonization Society, polygenist race scientists, and southern defenders of slavery. It further argues that the physicians’ divergent conclusions regarding nature’s agency played a significant role in underwriting arguably the most important and consequential political debate in antebellum Black America—namely, the dispute between integrationists who advocated remaining in the United States and fighting for equality and emigrationists who argued that America was so hopelessly racist that African Americans should evacuate and even form their own nation. McCune Smith’s rejection of Liberian colonization, his call to stay in the United States and fight for inclusion, and his hopeful vision of the American future rested in large part on his climate science. Employing statistical evidence, he argued that all humans were healthiest in temperate rather than tropical climates and that a beneficial North American natural environment was slowly eliminating the racial distinctions that underwrote American racism and slavery and giving all Americans, regardless of ancestry, the physical features of Native Americans. Delany’s politics were also profoundly shaped by climate science, but, unlike McCune Smith, he agreed with polygenist race scientists that climate could not alter biological race. He further concluded that, while Black people remained healthy in all climates, white people degenerated physically, mentally, and morally when they migrated from a temperate to a subtropical or tropical climate. Since the North American natural environment could not eliminate the racial features referenced by white racists and slaveholders and because enfeebled whites would always need Black labor in the subtropical South, Delany took a pessimistic view of the American future and advocated that African Americans emigrate and form a new Black nation in a tropical location fatal to white people. The article demonstrates that, long before the rise of the environmental justice movement, prominent abolitionists wed the Black freedom struggle to sophisticated and even proto-ecological scientific models of the body’s place in nature.

中文翻译：

---

战前黑色气候科学：James McCune Smith 和 Martin Delany 的医学地理和解放政治

本文认为，作为对美国殖民协会、多基因种族科学家和南方奴隶制捍卫者的气候理论的回应，两位著名的战前黑人医生——詹姆斯·麦库恩·史密斯和马丁·德拉尼——发展了自然对人体影响的相互竞争的科学理论。它还进一步认为，医生对自然代理的不同结论在可以说是战前黑人美国最重要和最重要的政治辩论中发挥了重要作用 - 即主张留在美国的融合主义者与争取平等和移民主义者之间的争论谁认为美国是如此绝望的种族主义者，以至于非裔美国人应该撤离，甚至建立自己的国家。McCune Smith 拒绝利比里亚殖民，他呼吁留在美国并争取包容，以及他对美国未来充满希望的愿景在很大程度上取决于他的气候科学。他利用统计证据认为，所有人都在温带气候而不是热带气候中最健康，而且有益的北美自然环境正在慢慢消除造成美国种族主义和奴隶制的种族差异，并赋予所有美国人（无论血统如何）美洲土著。Delany 的政治也深受气候科学的影响，但与 McCune Smith 不同，他同意多基因种族科学家的观点，即气候无法改变生物种族。他进一步得出结论，虽然黑人在所有气候条件下都保持健康，但白人在身体上、精神上、当他们从温带迁移到亚热带或热带气候时，道德上也是如此。由于北美的自然环境无法消除白人种族主义者和奴隶主提到的种族特征，而且由于衰弱的白人在亚热带南部总是需要黑人劳动力，因此德拉尼对美国的未来持悲观态度，主张非裔美国人移民并形成热带地区的新黑人国家对白人来说是致命的。文章表明，早在环境正义运动兴起之前，著名的废奴主义者就将黑人自由斗争与身体在自然界中的位置的复杂甚至原始生态科学模型结合起来。由于北美的自然环境无法消除白人种族主义者和奴隶主提到的种族特征，而且由于衰弱的白人在亚热带南部总是需要黑人劳动力，因此德拉尼对美国的未来持悲观态度，主张非裔美国人移民并形成热带地区的新黑人国家对白人来说是致命的。文章表明，早在环境正义运动兴起之前，著名的废奴主义者就将黑人自由斗争与身体在自然界中的位置的复杂甚至原始生态科学模型结合起来。由于北美的自然环境无法消除白人种族主义者和奴隶主提到的种族特征，而且由于衰弱的白人在亚热带南部总是需要黑人劳动力，因此德拉尼对美国的未来持悲观态度，主张非裔美国人移民并形成热带地区的新黑人国家对白人来说是致命的。文章表明，早在环境正义运动兴起之前，著名的废奴主义者就将黑人自由斗争与身体在自然界中的位置的复杂甚至原始生态科学模型结合起来。德拉尼对美国的未来持悲观态度，主张非裔美国人移民并在对白人致命的热带地区形成一个新的黑人国家。文章表明，早在环境正义运动兴起之前，著名的废奴主义者就将黑人自由斗争与复杂的甚至原始生态科学模型结合起来，说明身体在自然界中的位置。德拉尼对美国的未来持悲观态度，主张非裔美国人移民并在对白人致命的热带地区形成一个新的黑人国家。文章表明，早在环境正义运动兴起之前，著名的废奴主义者就将黑人自由斗争与身体在自然界中的位置的复杂甚至原始生态科学模型结合起来。