THE INVENTION OF RACE
The invention of race


Racial domination encourages us to think of racial
boundaries as timeless separations.
However, race is a historical invention.
 The
racial categories began to solidify at the beginning
of the nineteenth century, while the term “race”
obtained its meaning in the late 1700s.
 The
primary social division during the Middle Ages was
between “sophisticated Christians” and “barbarous
heathens.”

Instead of the color line, the primary social division was between
the “civilized” and “uncivilized,” and religion greatly influenced
this division.
Modernity rising

Spain and England, through their exploration,
empire building, and colonialism, gave birth to the
system of racial classification we know today.
England and Ireland in the early
modern era

During the fourteenth century, the Irish were
regarded as nothing short of “savages” to England
 The
Irish were considered wild, evil, polluted, and in
need of correction.

This mindset would greatly influence how the English
would come to view America’s indigenous peoples.
 The
cruel saying that circulated in North America during
the 19th century--“The only good Indian is a dead
Indian”--first circulated in England as “The only good
Irishman is a dead Irishman.”
Modernity rising

Modernity refers to a historical era marked by the
rise of nationalism, development of capitalism,
global expansion, and disenchantment of the world
and rapid growth of scientific knowledge.
 Since
the old world and its ways were passing on, a
newer “modern” world took its place.
Modernity rising

Nationalism emerges in the early modern era.
 see
in its beginning stages within fifteenth century Spain
 A brand new identity, nationalism, was being created –
different from forms based on religion, family, or trade.
 New nations create a “people” or imagined community
bounded by a political border.


Nations are “imagined communities” bound together inside
artificially created political borders.
Race would come to guide the emergence of
development of many modern states
Age of discovery

The “Age of Discovery,” “Age of Colonialism,” and
“Age of Terrorism” all refer to the same events
based upon different points of view.
 The
first is the common title for this period of
exploration but the second might be more accurate. The
third would be used by those indigenous to Africa and
the Americas.
Age of discovery


Europe, a region once divided by internal strife at
warfare, began to congeal around a shared
identity.
A new and powerful division entered the world, one
separating “the West” from “the rest.”
 Exploration
narratives such as The Travels of Marco
Polo often preferred fantasy to fact and legend to
observation when chronicling the indigenous peoples
encountered.
 These fantasies help construct a false dichotomy
between “the West” and “the rest.”
Colonization of the Americas

Colonialism refers to when a foreign power invades
a territory and establishes enduring systems of
exploitation and domination over that territory’s
indigenous populations
 Colonizers
justify their oppression through belief
systems that humiliate indigenous peoples, robbing them
of their honor and humanity.


The Spanish conquest
The English conquest
The Spanish conquest (beginning
th
in the 16 century)

Reasons for Spain’s desire to colonize the Americas
 to
profit from gold and silver in the land
 to claim the land for Spain’s rulers
 to convert indigenous people to Catholicism

Spain wanted to colonize modern-day Cuba,
Hispaniola, and the east coast of Mexico for all of
these reasons.
The Spanish conquest

Miscegenation, or intermarriage and intercourse between
people with different skin tones, was prevalent in the
Spanish colonies.

The rulers of Spain encouraged intermarriage between
conquistadores and indigenous women, believing it would help to
stabilize the region.
The territories soon were populated by children of mixed
heritage. Systems of racial classification began to take
shape, the miscegenation resulted in the categories become
blurry and humorous.
 These categories are still employed today throughout Latin
America

The Spanish conquest
 As
would occur in North America, slavery would
transform from a multiracial institution, to one that
reserved the shackle primarily for Africans.
The English conquest
 The
first permanent British colony was founded in
Jamestown 1607.
 The
English were not keen on intermarrying with Native
Americans.
 English
were not very interested in “converting the lost.”
 Spain
was more interested in conversion, while the English
just wanted resources and land.
 The
English created “the Indian.”
 The
Indian was created by the English when settling the
eastern coast of North America.

All indigenous people were lumped together– they were seen as
“savages” the opposite of civilized Englishmen.
The English conquest

Terms for the two steps used by the English to create
the concept of “The Indian”
 homogenization
and polarization
 The Indian was split into two: a good and a bad Indian.
 “Noble
savage” – childlike yet pure, primitive yet one with
nature
 On the other hand, the Indian was depicted as a beast, a
brute, a bloodthirsty monster. The--“ignoble savage” –
wicked and fearsome.
The English conquest


From 1600 to 1900, 90% to 99% of America’s
indigenous peoples died as a result of European
colonization.
“The Indian Wars” lasted for 350 years


Historians point to the 1540 Spanish subjugation of the Zuni
and Pueblo as the starting point, and the massacre at
Wounded Knee as the end.
Native Americans were killed by disease and by the
sword; they were starved, relocated, an enslaved.

In beginning of the 20th century, the entire indigenous
population of Canada, the United States, and Greenland
combined numbered only 375,000.
The English conquest


Between 1630 and 1730, European-introduced
diseases killed off nearly 80% of the indigenous
population of new England.
Between 1615 and 16.8, 90% of the indigenous
population of Massachusetts died of the plague.
The invention of whiteness and
blackness

The English settlers needed an exploitable people to help them
turn a profit so indentured servants began arriving in the
Americas by the shipload.
 indentured
servant
 the
term for a laborer who was bound to an employer for a
fixed amount of time, after which they were freed

In America, indentured servitude steadily evolved
into slavery.
 Workers
who were initially bound to their masters for a
set period of time soon became bound to their masters
for the entirety of their lives.
The invention of whiteness and
blackness

1676, an uprising called Bacon’s Rebellion broke
out at Jameson.
 Bonded
laborers of Africa, English, Irish descent rose up
against wealthy plantation owners.

In the decades following the Rebellion, the majority
of white Americans began to view white servants as
people who could be assimilated into American
citizenry and black servants as slaves for life.
The invention of whiteness and
blackness

Reasons Africans were viewed at the time as “the
perfect slaves”
 Africans
had no other refuge than those provided by
their masters
 Africans were immune to Old World diseases
 Africans were used to the Southern U.S. climate
 Many Africans were already farmers

It was not strictly for their blackness that Africans
were viewed as perfect slaves during this time.
The invention of whiteness and
blackness

Reason why Native Americans were not
permanently enslaved
 their
numbers were too few to meet the needs of
plantation capitalism
 they were too familiar with the land and could easily
escape potential owners
 their work as guides and trappers in fur trade industry
was too lucrative to disrupt
The invention of whiteness and
blackness

The white race began to be formed “out of a
heterogeneous and motley collection of Europeans
who had never before perceived that they have
anything in common.”
The slave trade


The Atlantic slave trade, transporting African slaves
to the Americas, had been in operation since when
mid-fifteenth century
Several countries, including Portugal, Spain,
England, France, the Netherlands, and America,
participated in it.
The slave trade

consequences for the African societies who participated
in the slave trade
the trade ultimately underdeveloped Africa as a whole
 depleted its population of young men
 directed its attention away from more productive economic
activities
 constructed Africans as an inferior people in the minds of
Europeans


In the long run, these costs outweighed any short-term
financial gains Africans enjoyed through their
participation in the slave trade.
The rise of King Cotton

Cotton farming single-handedly reinvigorated
slavery due to its high demand and increased
technological efficiency
 The
cotton gin and the increase in demand made cotton
king and demanded more and more African slaves to
do its bidding.
The rise of King Cotton


By 1865, it is estimated that there were close to 4 million
slaves in America.
W.E.B. Du Bois stated that white laborers in the service of
plantation owners were compensated for their low wages
with a public and psychological wage

Owners needed to convince poor white laborers to ignore their
low pay and bad living conditions and instead to take pride in
their inherent “whiteness.”


They were giving public deference and titles of courtesy because
they were white.
According to Pem Davidson Buck, to thwart the formation of
interracial coalitions between poor whites enslaved blacks,
whites had to “teach whites the value of whiteness.”
The Monroe doctrine

The Monroe doctrine outlawed European conquest
of Latin America conquest but allowed for American
conquest.
Dealing with the “Indian problem”

Assimilation and removal were the primary
strategies employed to deal with the “Indian
problem.”
 Removal
was ultimately cheaper and easier to use, but
both methods were used.
Immigration from Asia in the late 19th
century

Asians began migrating to the United States in
large numbers in the late nineteenth century.