If evolution is progressive and the first humans were from Africa, what is the unarticulated assumption about the European and the African? The Neanderthal Man was the first homo sapien (or, thinking man). Interestingly he was discovered in the Neander Valley in Germany. His African predecessors (homo habilis and homo erectus) were nit wits. 19th Germany, Britain and France were in a race to prove that intelligent humans came from their respective soils.
Ernst Haeckel, prominent (and extremely influential) 19th German century naturalist promulgated evolutionary theory that “provided scientific support for the particularly virulent racism that infected some strands of German thought during the late 19th and early 20th centuries culminating in Nazi race theory”. According to Kant (and many others) races, groups and nationalities are species and are in a struggle for competition. International war and domination are an example of ontology recapitulating phylogeny with the European on top. He must be superior biologically. Most early evolutionists made that direct connection between the natural world and social connections, capitalism and imperialism. They are the natural result of competition between racial “species”. ~Evolution: The remarkable history of a scientific theory by Edward Larson 2004
The idea of whether humans evolved first came to fruition in 1838 when Darwin visited the island of Tierra del Fuego. The short, dark people said Darwin, resembled the monkeys at the London Zoo. He called them the lowest form of humanity on earth (Darwin, Journal of Researches, p. 373). He asked: “Does a negress blush? Animals I would think should not…I am almost sure the Fuegians did.” It was from these racist thought experiments and comparisons, not science (and certainly not through any empirically or biologically valid taxonomy), that the idea of human evolution was born. Before this, the idea of human evolution was hardly ever considered (only the transmutation of animal species was discussed). These taxonomic relations borne out of pseudo-science of the day always placed the European at the top of the evolutionary chain and the Negro at the bottom, both biologically and culturally. This gave the some scientific validity to racial domination and social stratification couched within a capitalist ideology.
For those who make claims about what the “original” intent of evolution was vs. what it is now: if you have not read this book (or ones like it), you are remiss (to put it mildly). Put it on your shelf.https://www.amazon.com/Evolution-Remarkable-History-Scientific-Chronicles/dp/0812968492?fbclid=IwAR1-BiHAKh2z9O3tfbcVuiVVZrHXlkzIWQN0irOE_TroLZpsrnLbumRkHoc