Anténor Firmin was an anthropologist who pioneered a critical study of race and physical anthropology and developed in his major work, The equality of the human races: positivist anthropology, a vision of anthropology as an integrated study of humanity. The publication date of 1885 of this work marks it as a pioneering text in anthropology, and it is perhaps the first major work of anthropology written by a person of African descent.

Although Firmin’s tome was lost to Francophone anthropology, it was recognized not only in Haiti but also among Pan-Africanist scholars as an early work of négritude. Anténor Firmin also had a seminal impact on Jean Price-Mars, the 20th-century founder of Haitian ethnology, and these ties extend further to the American founder of African and Afro-American anthropology, Melville Herskovits.

Excerpt from Carolyn Fluehr-Lobban (2005), "Anténor Firmin and Haiti’s contribution to anthropology," Gradhiva. Online

Further reading:

FIRMIN, J.-A. (1885/2002). The equality of the human races: Positivist Anthropology. Chicago: University of Illinois Press.

FLUEHR-LOBBAN, C. (2000). Anténor Firmin: Haitian Pioneer of Anthropology. American Anthropologist, 102(3), 449–466. Online

FLUEHR-LOBBAN, C. (2018). A 19th Century Haitian Pioneering Anthropologist: An Intellectual Biography of Anténor Firmin, in Bérose - Encyclopédie internationale des histoires de l'anthropologie, Paris. Online

PRICE-MARS, J. (1978). Antenor Firmin. Port-au-Prince: Imp. Séminaire adventiste. PDF

Main publications:

1885. De l’égalité des races humaines: Anthropologie positive. Paris: Cotillon. PDF

1892. Défense: M. Stewart et les Finances Hatiennes. Paris: Cotillon. PDF

1899. Diplomate et diplomatie: lettre ouverte a M. Solon Menos.

1901. Feuilles de chêne. Paris: Ateliers haïtiens. PDF

1904. Lettre Ouverte aux Membres de la Société de Législation de Port-au-Prince. PDF

1905. M. Roosevelt, president des Etats-Unis et la Republique d'Ha'iti. Paris: F. Pichon. PDF

1907. On the Caribbean Confederation. In: The Haiti Reader, p.169.

1908. The execution of the Coicou Brothers, with Nord Alexis. In: The Haiti Reader, p.144.

1910. Lettres de Saint-Thomas. Paris: V. Girard & Briere. PDF

1911. L'effort dans le mal. Port-au-Prince: Imprimerie H. Chauvet.

2000/2002. The Equality of the Human Races. Chicago: University of Illinois Press. Google Livros

2011. Un acercamiento a La igualdad de las razas humanas. Havana: Ciencias Sociales. PDF