Marx’s second daughter, Laura, fell in love with a young medical student named Paul Lafargue in 1866. Lafargue was of French-Cuban origin. He was apparently one-quarter Jewish, one-quarter Carib Indian, probably less than an eighth Negro, and the rest French.
Although Lafargue was a socialist and one of Marx’s great admirers, Marx was not at all pleased with the proposed marriage until he discovered that the bridegroom-to-be was the only son of a wealthy West Indian planter whose father planned to settle a large sum on the couple. This not only provided Laura with apparent financial security, but opened up a new source from which Marx himself might borrow money. Marx decided that Lafargue was “a handsome, intelligent, energetic and gymnastically developed fellow”
Lafargue seemed in many ways an ideal son-in-law. He was comparatively rich, a socialist, a man who ran political errands for Marx, a professional, and, by Marx’s standards, a coming man in medicine. This did not prevent Marx from telling Theodore Cuno, a fellow socialist who was emigrating to the United States that one of his daughters had contributed to “solving the color question by marrying a n——-... ,” In addition, Marx habitually referred to Lafargue as “the little Negro” (Negrillo) or as “the Gorilla.”
Laura (Karl Marx’s daughter) bore a second child a year after the first. On January 17, 1870, Jenny Marx (Karl’s wife & Laura’s mother) wrote Engels that she hoped her daughter would practice reproductive restraint and not produce “ten little n——- boys.”
The unpleasant remark which Engels made in 1887, three years before his death, that it was highly appropriate for Lafargue to run for office in a Paris district that included the zoo since “in his quality as a n——-” he was “a degree nearer to the animal kingdom than the rest of us. . . .”
AND ABOUT HIS OWN SON-IN-LAW!
Marx’s second daughter, Laura, fell in love with a young medical student named Paul Lafargue in 1866. Lafargue was of French-Cuban origin. He was apparently one-quarter Jewish, one-quarter Carib Indian, probably less than an eighth Negro, and the rest French.
Although Lafargue was a socialist and one of Marx’s great admirers, Marx was not at all pleased with the proposed marriage until he discovered that the bridegroom-to-be was the only son of a wealthy West Indian planter whose father planned to settle a large sum on the couple. This not only provided Laura with apparent financial security, but opened up a new source from which Marx himself might borrow money. Marx decided that Lafargue was “a handsome, intelligent, energetic and gymnastically developed fellow”
Lafargue seemed in many ways an ideal son-in-law. He was comparatively rich, a socialist, a man who ran political errands for Marx, a professional, and, by Marx’s standards, a coming man in medicine. This did not prevent Marx from telling Theodore Cuno, a fellow socialist who was emigrating to the United States that one of his daughters had contributed to “solving the color question by marrying a n——-... ,” In addition, Marx habitually referred to Lafargue as “the little Negro” (Negrillo) or as “the Gorilla.”
Laura (Karl Marx’s daughter) bore a second child a year after the first. On January 17, 1870, Jenny Marx (Karl’s wife & Laura’s mother) wrote Engels that she hoped her daughter would practice reproductive restraint and not produce “ten little n——- boys.”
The unpleasant remark which Engels made in 1887, three years before his death, that it was highly appropriate for Lafargue to run for office in a Paris district that included the zoo since “in his quality as a n——-” he was “a degree nearer to the animal kingdom than the rest of us. . . .”