Did you know that race was not always considered
a biological or genetic category? So how did we come to understand it that way
today? We all have a working definition of race. Whether you kinda understand it, hate it,
claim to not see it, or study it (hint hint, cough cough: that’s me), it still plays
a role in our daily lives. From the way that people interact, to the
places they live and stereotypes they face, race is still a determining factor in our
social structures, both inside and outside of the U.S. But full disclosure, I do a lot of U.S. history
so this is a U.S. specific video about race, since these histories operate differently
across various contexts. Ok, so let’s get started by asking: What were some of the earliest definitions
of “race”? Well, before we started thinking of race along
the lines of biology, genetics, or phenotype (aka physical appearance) did you know that
it was largely considered a category of kinship or group affiliation? In the 16th century, we started to see the
use of the word race in English, but it isn’t attributed to physical traits or behavior. It meant, quite literally, that you were all
members of the same household, group, or shared a common ancestor. But, when did “race” shift to being less
about kinship groups, to sounding more complicated than the lyrics to “I’m my own grandpa”? Well we can see that starting in the colonial
era. And that brings us to our second question: Why did we see the shift in the idea of race
in the 17th and 18th century? The answer to this question is firmly rooted
in two things: the rise of global capitalism that was backed by slavery and colonialism,
and a period of theorizations in Europe known as the Enlightenment. When the Spanish began the colonization of
the Caribbean, and later Latin America, after 1492, they looked to Native populations to
mine silver and gold under brutal working conditions. They set about enslaving, attacking, and murdering
those who didn’t comply. Thousands of Native people died as a result
of over work, genocide, or because they were exposed to new diseases brought over with
the Spanish settlers. And when England established its first successful
long term colonies in North America in Virginia in 1607, they looked to mirror this pattern
of enslavement with Native people, while also seeking copious amounts of silver and gold. But they had limited success with this route
because: 1) Virginia wasn’t exactly rich in gold and 2) Native populations were able
to resist the efforts of early settlers through fighting back, or escaping and blending into
adjacent Native groups. English settlers still wanted to make money
off of this venture so they began to look to alternative ways of making Virginia profitable,
and that came in the form of tobacco. But a major problem with growing tobacco is
that it requires a ton of labor, and the laborers needed the agricultural skills to turn the
crop into cash. Because they had already met with sustained
resistance from Native populations, English settlers looked to other potential labor sources:
enslaved Africans and indentured British laborers. There are some important distinctions to make
between these two groups. First, indenture was a contractual agreement
with fixed terms that varied widely. Some indentured servants were brought to the
colonies against their will either as a punishment or because they were children. Terms of these contracts were often very exploitative. But many came willingly in exchange for their
passage to the new colonies. Many of these indentured servants finished
the terms of their contracts and began lives as property owners. Enslavement of Africans was an entirely different
category of labor from indenture. Because 1) Slavery was for life, not for a
fixed term or number of years. 2) Slaves were not considered human. 3) It was not a contract, because it takes
two consenting humans to enter into a contract. And 4) Slave laws were enacted codifying hereditary
slavery, meaning that if you were enslaved and had children, then those children would
also remain in slavery. With the expansion of this system there was
understandably some resistance, even from Europeans. So in order to continue to justify slavery
we start to see the pseudo science of “race” emerge that connected physical features, behavior
and legal rights, right around the 18th century when colonial use of slaves was expanding. Anthropologist Audrey Smedley notes that “scientific”
ideas about physical appearance and racial difference in the 18th century were largely
“folk” ideas used to justify already existent social norms. So as a result of a desire to perpetuate systems
of exploitation, more and more distinctions were made about the supposed differences amongst
races, primarily the differences of black people from their white counterparts. This evolution of race became more concretized
after social structures of slavery were in place and not before and was solidified by
the Enlightenment. Which brings us to our third question: How did the Enlightenment impact definitions
of race? The Enlightenment was a period of primarily
European thought and ideological development that saw the emergence of some key concepts
that tie back into today’s discussion. First: there was a push in scientific communities
to categorize the natural world using “reason” and creating elaborate hierarchical systems
that emphasized the similarities between different species and subgroups and the inherent differences
amongst others. And race was fitted into this same mold. As European theorists looked to classify the
world into “scientific” groupings, physical markers that were already established social
norms through enslavement and genocide were ways that they sought to “prove” that
this was the “natural” order and not a social construction. For example, Thomas Jefferson, who was a proponent
of concepts like individual liberty and freedom for white men or those he considered his peers,
also made claims that black slaves required less sleep than their European counterparts
to justify excruciatingly long and inhumane work hours. And Samuel Cartwright, who falsely claimed
that “drapetomania” was a mental defect that caused enslaved black people to run away
from slavery, as if wanting to escape a lifetime of enslavement was...illogical? The Enlightenment formulation of History also
played a crucial role in the development of social ideologies of race. Kang, Hegel, and other philosophers of their
day claimed that certain racial groups stood outside of history or had no history, and
this included all groups that they considered non-white or outside of European ideals of
modernity. This meant that groups that were devoid of
history and culture were inherently less valuable and therefore subordinate to other races. They were cast as the natural sacrifices of
supposed “progress.” These assumptions were also codified into
law in the 18th and 19th century. The first naturalization laws of the United
States in 1790, limited naturalized citizenship to “free white persons” and excluded other
groups. Children born of enslaved mothers were said
to inherit the legal statuses of their mother, effectively keeping them in bondage perpetually. And Native Americans were often denied legal
property rights, which helped to expedite the process of Westward expansion across the
North American continent. And “anti-miscegenation” laws were drafted
in order to assure that people from different racial backgrounds did not intermarry or have
children in order to protect ideals of racial purity. But these racial categorizations did not always
neatly align with skin tone. In his book
Whiteness of a Different Color: European Immigrants and the Alchemy of Race, historian Matthew
Jacobson notes that in the U.S. “white” or “caucasian” was not always considered
a unified race composed of anyone of European descent. Whiteness was often considered exclusive to
Anglo-Saxon descendants, while other European groups were broken into different ethnic categories
such as “Celt,” “Slavs,” “Iberics,” and “Hebrews”, which were considered separate
races from the 1840s to the early 20th century. But in the 1920s, when there was a stemming
of migration from Europe, these different races were subsumed into one category called
“whiteness” to shore up a cultural majority against other racial groups and immigrants. And this persisted throughout the 20th century. So how does it all add up? Well race started as a marker of kinship. But then we see it shift to become less about
familial inheritance and more focused on physical indicators due to the rise of Enlightenment
reasoning and labor exploitation. But where does that leave us today? Well, in the past several decades scholars
have noted both an uptick in identifying with your ethnic history, for example pride in
your country or culture of origin, instead of just being “white” or “black.” But we’ve also seen a revival of outdated
theories of race being biologically determined and attached to certain traits, like considering
all people of one physical type as prone to certain behaviors. But regardless of how people identify themselves,
race continues to be a complex topic of discussion and debate. With that final thought in mind: Do you have any other historical points to
add to the evolution of “race”? And how has race been used in both positive
and negative contexts throughout history? Definitely be sure to check out the works
cited this week, since there was a LOT of material and ground to cover and this was only
just the surface! Well that’s it for this week. Drop them below, like, share, and subscribe
and we’ll see you next week! Hey guys, thanks for all of your comments
last week on “what would happen if Islamic armies had won at the Battle of Tours?” Here’s what some of you had to say: Rachel on Facebook speculates that European
architecture would have been much different and perhaps the influence of Moorish architecture
would have spread past Portugal and Spain and into France. Thanks for watching, Rachel! PoseidonXIII on YouTube (who is a person,
and I’m assuming not an aquatic God?) says that he’s really digging the new format
of the episodes and enjoying the hypothetical questions. Thanks for watching from under the sea, Poseidon! And our last shoutout is actually from our
American Revolution episode, I wanted to say “hi” to Mr. Miller’s class in North
Carolina, I heard you were finishing up your unit on the American Revolution and used our
video in class. That’s super awesome! Stay curious and thanks for watching. So that’s it for now, and we’ll see you
next week!
I'm from Canada. We learned this stuff in jr high in the 70s.
The concept of 'whiteness' is just a racial construct started by rich people to manipulate poor people in the US. Nowadays, race is an industry and business model that still works the same way.