climate theorists

abolitionist and sci-entist Henri Gregoire for sending him a copy of An Enquiry Concern-ing the I ntellectual and Moral Faculties, and Literature of Negroes on February 25. Gregoire offered travel “ testimony” of glorious Black nations to refute what “ Jefferson tells us, t hat no nation of t hem was ever civi-lized,” he wrote. “ We do not pretend to place the negroes on a level” with Whites, Gregoire explained in assimilationist f orm, but only to challenge those who say “that t he negroes are i ncapable of becoming partners i n the store-house of human knowledge.”

Smith had been pondering assimilationist climate theory for s ome time. He may have learned it first f rom Buffon, or from James Bow-doin’s opening oration of t he newly established American Academy of Arts and Sciences i n Boston on May 4, 1780.