His biographer (Horsman 1987) stated “as a Southern Gentleman, Nott expected to be believed … though he had raised his innate prejudices to the level (of what he assumed to be) scientific truth” (87, 296). Although he claimed to be a scientific realist, Nott’s writings on race between 1843 and the outbreak of the Civil War in 1861 and again in 1866 were colored by arrogant racist prejudice.
