When people in the United
States meet someone
and are unsure of his or her
race, they sometimes feel
compelled to ask: “What
are you?”
p. 5: Martin Barraud/Getty Images
KEY IDEA: RACE AN IDEA THAT WAS CREATED
NOT DISCOVERED
Race is an idea that has not always existed in
human cultures.
(pp. 7-9)
Race is a creation that some take for granted as
biologically real but is only socially real. (p. 6)
KEY IDEA: RACE WAS INVENTED FROM
SEVERAL HISTORICAL INFLUENCES
“Ancient peoples did not divide the world into
distinct races based on their physical and
cultural traits.” (p. 7)
The idea of race developed in stages across
time and is still developing.
KEY IDEA: RACE WAS INVENTED FROM
SEVERAL HISTORICAL INFLUENCES
Purity of blood idea during the Spanish Inquisition and the mistreatment of
Muslim and Jewish peoples
Conquistadores
Treatment of Irish by the English
English superiority brought to the Americas in mid 1600s
Slavery based on skin color and place of origin
Colonization of the Americas
When Christopher
Columbus encountered
the native peoples of the
Caribbean, he found
them to be peaceable
and generous.
p. 11: Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images
“Our contemporary racial worldview is a relic
of the systems of human classification that
were first used in the context of the
colonization of American Indian territories and
the enslavement of Africans in the Americas.”
(p. 22)
THE IDEA OF RACE DEVELOPING THROUGH
LAWS
State slave codes legislated in the 1660s:
• Clearly differentiated between African descended people and
English who were indentured servants
• Refused freedom to African descent people who were enslaved
and became Christians in Virginia because they had a “heathen”
origin (a 1667 law)
• Outlawed the freeing of slaves & coalitions between poor whites
and blacks, created slavery for life, and prevented interracial
marriages (in Virginia and Maryland)
Between 10 and 30
million Africans were
brought to the Americas
on slave ships. Nearly a
quarter died while at sea.
p. 13: De Agostini/Getty Images
SLAVERY AND RACE
These laws were put in place to create a class
of people that would be a work force. Laws
kept blacks separate from other groups like
indentured servants or poor whites to prevent
them from uprising against the elite classes.
Such a revolt based on cross-group coalition
happened with Bacon’s Rebellion in 1676.
SLAVERY AND RACE
The idea of freedom that was part of the
motivation for the American Revolution and
incorporated into the U.S. Constitution
coexisted in contradiction with the institution
of slavery.
Figure 1-1.
The Importation of
Servants from
Europe into British
America, 1580–1775
Figure 1-1: Richard S. Dunn, “Servants and Slaves,” in Jack P. Greene and J. R. Pole, Colonial
British America (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins, 1984), p. 159
Figure 1-2.
Regions from Which Captured Africans Were Brought to the Americas, 1501–1867
PHILOSOPHY OF RACE DEVELOPS IN STEPS
Biblical ideas
Pseudoscience typologies
Eighteenth century scientific racism
Manifest Destiny
BIBLICAL IDEAS
Europeans first explained the origins of “new”
groups of people using the Bible.
PSEUDOSCIENCE TYPOLOGIES
Classification systems used for plants and
animals were applied to people.
• Linnaeus
• Blumenbach
• Hume
Illustration from Josiah Clark Nott and
George Robins Gliddon’s Indigenous
Races of the Earth (1857), showing
perceived distinctions between the white
man, the black man, and the chimpanzee.
p. 25: from Indigenous Races of the Earth
EIGHTEENTH CENTURY SCIENTIFIC RACISM
Scientific Racism—when allegedly scientific
principles and methods were used to prove
the existence and qualities of races
• de Gobineau
• Spencer
• Morton
• Broca
Joseph Arthur Comte de Gobineau (July 14, 1816 –
October 13, 1882) was a French aristocrat who developed the
theory of the Aryan master race in his book An Essay on the
Inequality of the Human Races (1853-1855).
Gobineau was a successful diplomat whose career in Iran
influenced the development of his ideas. He came to believe
that race created culture. In his view the development of
empires created racial mixture, which led to the 'degeneration'
of races. He called this process Semiticization, because of
his belief that Semitic peoples were a product of the MiddleEastern cross-over between the otherwise distinct "black",
"white" and "yellow" races. Gobineau was known for his
reactionary aristocratic politics, as well as his hatred of mass
democratic culture. He believed himself to be the descendant
of Nordic Vikings and Condottieri.
The Count Joseph Authur de Gobineau was a supporter of eugenics. He
heavily influenced 19th century thinking concerning race. He referred to
race as a cluster of inherited characteristics. De Gobineau argued that
there are three races: the White, Black, and Yellow. According to De
Gobineau, Whites were the most evolved of the three races and Blacks the
least evolved. De Gobineau equated cultural evolution with biological.
MANIFEST DESTINY IDEOLOGY
Manifest Destiny—an idea that stated that the
expansion of whites across the United States
was inevitable and meant to be
This ideology was used by white leaders to
excuse the forced or coerced removal of
multiple native communities from their
homelands.
CONCLUSION
Understanding race for how it is socially and
historically constructed may be a new idea for
many.
This provides the foundation for other
chapters that explain how race and racism can
permeate interactions and processes in
current day life.