1. Chapter One: The Origin of the Idea of Race
By Tanya Maria Golash-Boza

2. 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

3. 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)

4. 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.

5. 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

6. 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

7. “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)

8. 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)

9. 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

10. 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.

11. 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.

12. 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

13. Figure 1-2.
Regions from Which Captured Africans Were Brought to the Americas, 1501–1867

14. Philosophy of race develops in steps
Biblical ideas Pseudoscience typologies Eighteenth century scientific racism Manifest Destiny

15. Biblical ideas
Europeans first explained the origins of “new” groups of people using the Bible.

16. Pseudoscience typologies
Classification systems used for plants and animals were applied to people.
Linnaeus
Blumenbach
Hume

17. 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

18. 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

19. 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 ( ).
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 Middle-Eastern 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.

20. 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.

21. 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.