Samenvatting verplichte tekst reader Strcutuur en conflict in het globale zuiden. Colonial origins of the concept of race - Judy Root Aulette. In het Engels.
Judy Root Aulette- Colonial origins of the concept of race
• Slave Castles in Ghana built by European slave traders
o Transatlantic slave trade
o “Doors of no return” sign
• Now: devastation & subsequent racist treatment remain. Legacy of slavery is racism,
still here
• Ghana:
o Important place slave trade
o Subject state of colonial British power
▪ They created idea of different tribes as tool for controlling
o Therefor birthplace of race & racism
▪ Global scale: slave trade
▪ Local scale: intertribal tensions
• Connection between practice of slavery and ideas of race & racism
o Historically rooted in contact with Europeans and white Americans
Where did the idea of race come from?
• Race doesn’t exist biological, but it is an important social fact. Powerful system that
influences the daily life
So race= idea, practice, sociale institution
• First with contact Europeans on a large scale, associated with early development
slavery during colonisation
• Colonialism= establishment political, economic & cultural control. Usual involving
occupation of the country & exploiting economically
• Edward Said:
o 1800 => The West held 35% of the earth’s surface
o 1874 => 67%
o 1914 => 85%
• Colonist settled as small farmers of on a large scale plantations for commercial
products (cotton, sugar) with huge labor force => racialized system of slavery
• Set up systems of government => submitting colonial settlers + indigenous people
• First: varieties human body & cultures but not seen as race or inferior. Gerenally
positive image
It changed with slavery => capturing and selling people => ideology of race & practice
of racism for justifying slavery, “lesser race”
• Variety of European ethnic populations => single race
• Term “White people”: first used in late 1600s, before 1960: whites were assumed no
race, just humans
, Justifying slavery
• 1522: The Pope banned slavery
• Spanish and Portuguese monarchs -> lucrative slave trade, claimed people southern
Africa were subhuman
• Rationalize slave system:
o Separate people: enslaved vs. ‘real humans’
o Establish superiority of slave owners
o Defended natural & orderly system
• First: enslaved people were not Christians, so ‘civilize’ & introduce Christianity with
slave systems
Later: need for stronger arguments => idea of race and racial hierarchies
• End 18th century and first half 19th century: racialization slave system increased.
More negative characterizations of Africans. Intensified when the abolitionist
movement grew. Defending by creating stronger justifications => idea of The Great
Chain of Being or the Scale of Nature.
• Politics supporting slavery: US constitution (ex. ‘Black slaves are three-fifths of a
person’)
• Three important lessons:
1. Race invented to defend slavery, chronologically:
a. Europeans captured and sold people as slaves
b. They sought a way to justify their behavior
c. They developed the idea that enslaved people looked different and it was
their destiny to become slaves
2. Racist ideologies didn’t develop rapidly
3. When there was criticism and legally abolished => increase solidify ideas and
legitimize with supposedly scientific explanations
Transatlantic Slave Trade
• Almost 400 years
• First ship in 1502 in Haiti
• Legal importation of slaves ended in 1807
• Last ship in Alabama in 1859
• Legal slavery until Emancipation Proclamation (1863)
• Minimum 12 million people enslaved
• Elmina Castle and Dungeon:
o At the Cape coast of West Africa, still remaining
o 18th century: 30.000/year passed through the “Door of no return”
o Built by Portugueses, first major European building in ‘tropical’ Africa
o For Ghanians: African American are tourists and wealthy. Ghanians want it to
be attractive for tourists so want to upgrade it.
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