**The troops of the Union (Northern states) fight against the Confederates (Southern states), Battle of Corinth, October 4, 1862, in the American Civil War.** Library of Congress

A Swiss Confederate propagandist

The life of Henry Hotze is largely unknown in Switzerland. Born in Zürich, Hotze emigrated to the United States. Later, he became the Confederacy's chief propagandist in Europe during the U.S. Civil War.

James Blake Wiener

James Blake Wiener is a world historian, Co-Founder of World History Encyclopedia, writer, and PR specialist, who has taught as a professor in Europe and North America.

Website: worldhistory.org

Henry Hotze was born in Zürich on September 2, 1833, but very little is known as to his earliest years. He was the son of Rudolf Hotze, who had served as a captain in the French army, and Sophia Esslinger of Zürich. What is certain is that Hotze received a comprehensive education, and he excelled in foreign languages, history, and rhetoric. Something of a prodigy, Hotze also studied anthropology and ethnology, which were new disciplines in the nineteenth century. Hotze became especially intrigued by racial theories and the origins of mankind at a young age.

A Swiss-Southern Gentleman in Mobile

Around the age of 17, Hotze emigrated from Switzerland to Mobile, Alabama. Founded by the French as the first capital of Louisiana, Mobile only became a part of the United States in 1813. Located along the Gulf of Mexico, and in close proximity to both the Mississippi River and New Orleans, Mobile was ideally suited for trade and agriculture. It was a prosperous city with close-to 30,000 inhabitants, equipped with wharves, schools, hospitals, and theaters. The coastwise slave trade ensured the transportation of slaves from the Upper South to the city for resale, while the profits from the exportation of cotton stimulated a property boom. In terms of cotton exports, Mobile ranked nationally as second, and it was the third most important U.S. port after New York City and New Orleans.

**Mobile in the 1800s.** Wellcome Collection

**Cotton harvest near Montgomery, Alabama, around 1860.** Library of Congress

Hotze felt at home in vibrant Mobile. Hotze’s Swiss perspectives on the importance of self-governance, political autonomy, and the rights of smaller, organized political communities, in relation to federal structures, were commonplace in the American South. His firm view that race alone determined one's moral and intellectual worth was also shared by the majority of Mobile's political and social elites. Although not considered handsome by the standards of the Antebellum South – he was a nearsighted, slight man of average height – Hotze’s Old World personal charm, sociability, and impeccable attire attracted much comment. He therefore received regular invitations to the opera, horse races, and society balls. Hotze’s remarkable intelligence and equal fluency in German, French, and English, additionally served him well in a city where Cajuns, Anglo-Americans, and Jews intermingled to discuss politics and business. In rapid succession, Hotze met and became close friends with the leading men of Mobilean society. Many of them later occupied positions of power in the Confederacy, i.e. the southern states of the USA, which supported slavery and seceded from the remaining states (called the Union) in 1861, which led to the American Civil War.

**Photograph of Henry Hotze, undated.** Wikimedia

Hotze became a U.S. citizen on June 27, 1856. In the same year, he translated the seminal three volume work of the French racial theorist Arthur de Gobineau – “Essai sur L’inégalité des Races Humaines” (Essay on the Inequality of Human Races) – into English. Through the addition of his own introduction and by expanding Gobineau’s text by over a hundred pages, Hotze attempted to prove through science that there existed a hierarchy of intelligence amongst the various races in the world. In his translation, which he entitled "Moral and Intellectual Diversity of Races", Hotze argued that slavery was justifiable because the brutal subjugation of those of African descent in the United States was tied to their lower intellectual capability.

I consider it therefore established beyond dispute that a certain general physical conformation is productive of corresponding mental characteristics.

Henry Hotze's racist justification of alleged racial differences

**The "Essai sur L'inégalité des Races Humaines", here in the first edition from 1853, is regarded as a fundamental work of racial theory, which later influenced the National Socialist race theory.** Wikimedia

Hotze’s translation of this vehemently racist text proved popular in the South, and Hotze became something of a celebrity. By virtue of his success, he held a series of prestigious positions just prior to the outbreak of the Civil War: as a member of Mobile's delegation to the Southern Commercial Convention in 1858; as the secretary of the Mobile Board of Harbor Commissioners; and as the secretary to the American legation in Brussels between 1858 and 1859. He also served as the associate editor at the Mobile Register. When the U.S. Civil War erupted in April 1861, Hotze worked first as a newspaper correspondent and then served briefly in the Confederate Army as a member of the Third Alabama Infantry Regiment in Virginia.

King Cotton’s Failure and Britain’s Importance

The Confederate President Jefferson Davis and the members of the Confederate Congress believed that outside of the military arena, the South’s victory was predicated upon foreign and especially British recognition of its independence. Cotton, in their estimation, was the lynchpin. They upheld the belief that it was indispensable to the British economy. Historians estimate that around 80 percent of the cotton used in British textile mills came from the American South by 1860 and that around 20 percent of workers in England were employed thanks to the cotton trade. The Union naval blockade of the South by the Union would hypothetically cripple the British economy, forcing Britain’s hand.

The "Anaconda Plan", shown here in a caricature from 1861, was the Union's plan to establish a blockade on the sea and the Mississippi River around the southern states in order to defeat them. — **The "Anaconda Plan", shown here in a caricature from 1861, was the Union's plan to establish a blockade on the sea and the Mississippi River around the Southern states in order to defeat them.** Wikimedia

Caricature from 1861 of *"King Cotton"*. The phrase "Cotton is king" is an allusion to the economic power of the Confederate States over the United Kingdom through the cultivation of cotton, represented here by the figure of *John Bull*. Wikimedia

This ultimately did not come to pass. Although cotton prices quadrupled in Europe by the end of 1861 and beginning of 1862, the British economy was strong enough to weather the dip in industrial production. Indeed, the British had already made concerted efforts since the 1850s to make India, Egypt, and Brazil reliable and alternative suppliers of cotton in order to lessen their dependence upon the American South.

Caricature with John Bull, the personification of Great Britain, annoyed by the civil strife in the U.S. and eager to conduct business with India, Punch, November 16, 1861. — **Caricature with John Bull, the personification of Great Britain, annoyed by the civil strife in the U.S. and eager to conduct business with India, *Punch*, November 16, 1861.** University Library Heidelberg

Given his charm, intellect, and linguistic acumen, officials in the Confederate government believed that Hotze's talents could be best employed at the Confederate State Department office in London. With “King Cotton” dethroned and “cotton diplomacy” in jeopardy, the Confederacy needed someone like Hotze to woo the British to their side as quickly as possible. Following the instructions of the Confederate Secretary of War, LeRoy Pope Walker, Hotze relocated to London in October 1861 under the pretext that he was a commercial agent seeking to procure arms. However, the real aim behind his move to Great Britain was so that he could operate as a secret agent, in an attempt to win British hearts and minds to the Confederate cause. Hotze’s task faced considerable obstacles. Aside from the strong moral repugnance of slavery, which pervaded across British society, some Britons questioned the political and economic viability of an independent Confederacy. Could a nation built upon slave labor and the export of raw materials flourish in an era in which steam-engine technology, textile machinery, and steel were remaking the world in Britain’s image? Why should Britain put its navy, territorial interests in Canada and the Caribbean, and economy at risk for the fledgling Confederacy? The British were well-aware that their investment capital had already begun to transform the U.S. economy from one which was primarily agricultural into one that was industrial. As British entrepreneurs and bankers reinvested excess profits generated by Britain's own Industrial Revolution and imperial ventures abroad into the U.S. economy, they helped facilitate the construction of railroads, factories, and the development of new manufacturing sectors in the Northern United States. Valuable though they were, sugar, cotton, indigo, and tobacco could not compete with the ample, mechanized resources of the Northern states – the industrial North would thus surely defeat the agricultural South in a matter of time.

**Map showing the "slaveholding" (red) and "free" (green) states of the USA, around 1860.** Library of Congress

The Confederate’s Chief Propagandist in London

Hotze contended that the British public was profoundly biased when it came to the U.S. Civil War, but he believed he could change this. In order to shift public opinion, he realized he would have to author a constant stream of articles, op-eds, and essays with a pro-Confederate angle for publication in the British media. Hotze published his first editorial anonymously in March 1862 in London's Morning Post. Thereafter, he sent a series of letters to the Morning Post and other leading dailies using a pseudonym, which defended Southern sovereignty. Hotze knew, however, that this was not enough and sought to do more. A newspaper devoted to the Union’s cause – the London American – had been in print since 1860. Read and consulted by British politicians and businessmen alike, the London American attracted a modest readership in Britain and throughout Continental Europe. Hotze figured that the same approach might work well for the Confederacy. Hotze received permission to establish and edit a weekly newspaper offering Southern perspectives on a variety of topics: Index. The first issue of the Index appeared on May 1, 1862, and it remained in print until August 12, 1865.

The first issue of the Index, May 1, 1862. — **The first issue of the *Index*, May 1, 1862.** Internet Archive / Boston Public Library

I think I may say without conceit that with my connections and my knowledge of the machinery of the press, I can ensure a simultaneous publicity in England and on the Continent, which even the [London] Times cannot equal.

Henry Hotze to Confederate Commissioner James M. Mason

The Index's circulation remained constant at around 2,250 readers per week, and Hotze secured contributions from pro-Confederate intellectuals and correspondents in Britain, France, Spain, Germany, and Italy. In addition to reports on Confederate and Union policies, cotton prices, and emotionally-charged descriptions of Southern heroism, Hotze and his contributors tried to articulate the promise and purpose of an independent Confederacy within the pages of the Index. Hotze was adamant that he could alter British public opinion and foreign policy by appealing directly to the British sense of civility. Hotze and his editorial team devoted a great deal of time writing pieces that delineated the shared values of the British Empire and the Confederacy. They moreover positioned the Confederacy as an emergent nation that followed in the political tradition of the American and French Revolutions – one in which citizens had the right to seize arms and pursue a course of national self-determination. Hotze valorized slavery as an integral element to the Confederacy too. In issue after issue, Hotze offered polemics that not only defended the institution of slavery, but editorials that promoted it as a respectable and useful institution, which engendered greater unity within Southern society. Hotze also concentrated on accentuating anti-American sentiment in Britain, especially in the aftermath of the Trent Affair (1861) and President Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation (1863), but with little success. The twin military defeats at Vicksburg and Gettysburg in July 1863 reaffirmed the view of many in London that the South’s cause was lost. No nation recognized the Confederacy by the time the U.S. Civil ended in April 1865.

Even though slavery was officially abolished with the victory of the Northern over the Southern states, racism and discriminatory legislation and practices – for example, in the form of racial segregation in public spaces – continued to exist. Employees in the waiting room of the Public Health Service Dispensary, in Washington, D.C., between 1909 and 1932. — Even though slavery was officially abolished with the victory of the Northern over the Southern states, racism and discriminatory legislation and practices – for example, in the form of racial segregation in public spaces – continued to exist. Employees in the waiting room of the *Public Health Service Dispensary*, in Washington, D.C., between 1909 and 1932. Library of Congress

Hotze’s life and activities become murky following the closure of the Index. It is known that he never disavowed the Confederate cause; he never discarded his racist opinions either. Hotze's unrepentant hostility towards the Union endured as well – he would never return to the United States despite retaining U.S. citizenship. Hotze continued to work as a journalist and corporate publicist between London and Paris. He remained in constant contact with his old network of Confederate politicians and sympathizers, including Judah P. Benjamin, the former Confederate Secretary of State, who had fled to London. Hotze married Ruby Senac, the daughter of a Cajun Confederate naval agent from Mobile, at the American Legation in Paris in 1867, but they had no children.

Judah P. Benjamin, 1861. Benjamin had been the first practicing Jew to to be elected to the United States Senate. After serving the Confederacy, he fled to England in 1865, where he worked as a successful barrister. Library of Congress

**Ruby Senac Hotze, 1867. After Hotze’s death, she would relocate to the United States, working for the U.S. Census Office in Washington, D.C.** Wikimedia

Hotze died in Zug on April 19, 1887. Hotze’s failure in galvanizing British opinion against the Union in favor of the Confederacy underscores the fundamental weaknesses of Confederate foreign and economic policies. To those outside the South, the Confederacy appeared to offer little economic advantages to industrialized, imperial nations like Britain. Nonetheless, Hotze’s life and activities highlight the large, important network of Confederate diplomats, spies, businessmen, and intellectuals operating in Europe during the U.S. Civil War. His close relationships with Confederate and European politicians, as well as with figures like notorious Confederate spy, Belle Boyd, reveal the extent to which Hotze’s superiors and colleagues regarded his abilities. A complex, unusual character, Hotze is a man whose legacy is nevertheless quite dark. Although the Confederacy’s ideal of a nation that enshrined the rights of a master over his slave died on the fields in Virginia in 1865, Hotze disseminated virulently racist ideas and theories that would be reinterpreted and shape societal discourse in many parts of the West well into the twentieth century.

More of: Modern Age Economy Politics War/battle Colonialism Society

Further posts

Direct democracy in Switzerland

René Roca 13.05.2022 Of all the world’s democracies, Switzerland has the most extensive elements of direct democracy. The historical roots of this political structure lie in the country’s relatively well-developed educational system, and the rural uprisings of the 19th century.

On voting weekends, posters like this one summon voters to the ballot box.

A pioneer with a dark side

Rachel Huber 21.04.2021 From hero of the old West to racist colonialist: Opinion on Swiss pioneer John Sutter has changed in recent decades.

From bankrupt cloth business to a spacious fort: Johann August Sutter seemed to have done everything right.

The ‘Kanton Übrig’ – Switzerland’s ‘leftover’ Canton

Andrej Abplanalp 10.05.2019 In 1919, the population of Vorarlberg voted to join Switzerland. The Federal Council was split, and the country otherwise was also rather reluctant. In the end, the region remained in Austria.