John Bachman
Template:Short description Template:Distinguish Template:Infobox clergy John Bachman (Template:Ipac-en Template:Respell; February 4, 1790 – February 24, 1874) was an American Lutheran minister, social activist and naturalist who collaborated with John James Audubon to produce Viviparous Quadrupeds of North America and whose writings, particularly Unity of the Human Race, were influential in the development of the theory of evolution. He was married to the painter Maria Martin. Several species of animals are named in his honor.
Life
Bachman served the same Charleston, South Carolina church as pastor for 56 years but still found time to conduct natural history studies that caught the attention of noted bird artist John James Audubon and eminent scientists in England, Europe, and beyond. He was a proponent of secular and religious education and helped found Newberry College and the Lutheran Theological Southern Seminary, as well as the South Carolina Lutheran Synod.
He was elected an Associate Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1845.<ref name=AAAS>Template:Cite web</ref>
Bachman was a social reformer who ministered to African-American slaves as well as white Southerners, and who used his knowledge of natural history to become one of the first writers to argue scientifically that blacks and whites are the same species. His accomplishments span a lifetime punctuated by the unrest of the American Civil War—a conflict that caused him great consternation and may have brought about his premature death due to injuries suffered at the hands of Union soldiers.
Legacy
Bachman's hare, Bachman's sparrow, and Bachman's warbler are named in his honor. The latter, now declared extinct, was recorded in 1832 by Bachman, who presented study skins and descriptions to his friend and collaborator, John James Audubon. Audubon never saw the bird alive but named it in honor of Bachman. In 1816, Bachman recorded the marsh rice rat.<ref>Chapman, F.M. 1893. Description of a new subspecies of Oryzomys from the Gulf States. Bulletin of the American Museum of Natural History 5:43–46.</ref>
Despite his achievements, Bachman is usually overlooked in accounts of important figures from the 19th century, and he is seldom mentioned in history courses, even in South Carolina schools.Template:Citation needed To improve public understanding of John Bachman's accomplishments, the Newberry College Alumni Association held a major international John Bachman Symposium in April 2006, the beginning of the college's 150th anniversary celebration. "Nature, God, and Social Reform in the Old South: The Life and Work of the Rev. John Bachman" was attended by academics, students, and the general public.
Commentary on Bachman
An 1854 article "The Southern Apostasy", in The New Englander, declares the following: "The Rev. Dr. Bachman, Pastor of a Lutheran Congregation in Charleston, is a man of eminent attainments in science, and particularly in the department of Natural History. ... Observe then how he exhibits the bearing of his subject on the "peculiar institutions" of the Southern States:"
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Leonard Woolsey Bacon writes in A History of American Christianity:
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In a footnote in the second edition of The Races of Men, Robert Knox wrote as follows:
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I have read with horror the ravings of Mr. John Bachman, a slave-owning parson. The expression "whited sepulchre" must have been invented for the class to which he belongs. They are very numerous in England.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>{{#if:|
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Bibliography
- Bachman, John (1850), The doctrine of the unity of the human race examined on the principles of science, Charleston, S.C.: C. Canning. LC control no. 05029882.
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- Desmond, Adrian; Moore, James (2009), Darwin's Sacred Cause: how a hatred of slavery shaped Darwin's views on human evolution, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. Template:ISBN
See also
References
- John Bachman Website
- John Bachman: A Life of Service, a short biographical sketch written in the late 1970s by Mary Bachman Hoover, Bachman's granddaughter
- Lutheran Theological Southern Seminary
- St. John's Lutheran Church
- South Carolina Synod, Evangelical Lutheran Church in America
External links
- Newberry College website — school founded by John Bachman.