
Henry Hotze was born in Zurich, Switzerland, on September 2, 1834, to Rudolph Hotze, a captain in the French Royal Service, and Sophie Esslinger. Little is known about his childhood other than that he received a very strong Jesuit education. Around 1850, Hotze emigrated to the United States and ended up in Mobile. On June 27, 1856, he became a naturalized U.S. citizen. Outgoing and well-educated, Hotze soon made contacts among Mobile's elites. One of his mentors was Josiah C. Nott, physician, scientist, and author, who promoted the study of race-based intelligence. Nott enlisted Hotze to translate Count Arthur de Gobineau's Essai sur L'inégalité des Races Humaines (Essay on the Inequality of Human Races), to which Hotze added his own introduction of more than 100 pages. Hotze's version, entitled Moral and Intellectual Diversity of Races (1856), was a detailed discussion of various cultures that purported to prove through science a hierarchy of racial intelligence among various groups of people based on skin color and continent of origin. Proponents of slavery used his finished product as a manifesto on the justification of slavery and subjugation. Hotze specifically adapted Gobineau's racial views to justify the unequal treatment of what he believed to be unequal races.

In the fall of 1861, the Confederate government sent Hotze on a special mission to Europe to purchase arms, but when he arrived in Great Britain, he came to believe that his time could be better spent on pro-Confederate diplomacy and propaganda. In November 1861, he successfully lobbied for an appointment as a "commercial agent" to London. Such an agent would normally be charged with procuring arms and supplies for the Confederate armies, but Hotze was actually sent to keep the Confederate government apprised of European public opinion and to present the Confederate cause in the best possible light to the local reading public. Working in an anonymous fashion, Hotze arranged for an unsigned editorial to be inserted in the London Morning Post. In March 1862, Hotze used this newfound access to contribute a series of four letters to the Post. Writing under the pseudonym "Moderator," Hotze detailed the legality, necessity, practicality, and desirability of southern independence and Europe's recognition of the Confederacy in a piece entitled "The Question of Recognition of the Confederate States."

With the suspension of his newspaper, Hotze quickly faded from public view. Very little is known of his final 20 years. Although he apparently maintained his U.S. citizenship, Hotze never returned to the United States. He obviously kept writing in some form because his obituary made mention that in his later years, he "received various decorations from foreign governments for services as a publicist." In 1868 he married Ruby Senac, a daughter of the Confederate paymaster in Europe. Hotze moved several times between London and Paris until, after a long period of illness, he died in Zug, Switzerland, on April 19, 1887.
Additional Resources
Bonner, Robert E. "Slavery, Confederate Diplomacy, and the Racialist Mission of Henry Hotze." Civil War History 51 (September 2005): 288-316.
Additional Resources
Bonner, Robert E. "Slavery, Confederate Diplomacy, and the Racialist Mission of Henry Hotze." Civil War History 51 (September 2005): 288-316.
Burnett, Lonnie A. Henry Hotze, Confederate Propagandist. Selected Writings on Revolution, Recognition, and Race. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 2008.
Cullop, Charles C. Confederate Propaganda in Europe, 1861-1865. Coral Gables: University of Miami Press, 1969
Dufour, Charles L. Nine Men in Gray. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1993.
Oates, Stephen B. "Henry Hotze: Confederate Agent Abroad." Historian 27 (February 1965): 131-54.