Hi Pseudonymous. Thanks for that, which gives me more reason the be wary of labels. We have one here that has at least two possible meanings.

I was suggesting that on the basis of that first explanation in his book Sharp's usage is more this:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Race_(biology)

than this:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Race_(human_categorization)

I think that it is easy to read "people applied Darwinian ideas of the survival of the fittest to cultures" as referring to competition between groups of people rather than a population changing its characteristics - adapting - with time due to survival of the fittest individuals.

I think simply labelling Sharp's comment on the negros as racist in the second sense above leaves us with the muddle of current usage. The first usage (which doesn't preclude the second) was important to him and to us in understanding his comments on things such as 'national music' and who he sought out to collect from.