Unpacking Race in Early United States

       As anyone who has taken an intro level sociology course will be proud to tell you; race is a sociological construction. For African Americans, brought to North America due to the slave trade and diaspora, the discussion of race is an ongoing complex matter. Northeastern Brazilian and French colonies in the Caribbean were able to maintain their cultural identities due to a more concentrated colonization process whereas those enslaved by the English lost touch with their ethnic roots. (Miller, UTS, ch.1) Moreover, the creation of race in the early United States served to create a social hierarchy that still impacts society today.

            The creation of race can be linked to the demand for Europeans to justify the institution of slavery. Enslaved people were viewed as property, this belief lent slave owners immense power. To exploit enslaved people the English adopted prejudiced beliefs regarding blackness. This method of dehumanizing a group of people to enslave them was a favorite for the English colonizers, and was used against Native Americans as well. Social structures developed in Spanish America where mixing of races (Mestizos) was prominent, whereas colonization viewed race from a more binary lens http://www.mixedracestudies.org/?p=48801. With this system in place, enslaved people in plantation colonies produced sugar, tobacco, and rice whereas New England and mid-Atlantic colonies tended to work on fields. It is likely that anti-blackness was perpetuated even further due to the caste system that was set in place by slavery.

            Slavery has not only marginalized enslaved people based on race, but gender as well. African, European, and Indigenous women existed on a continuum. To explain the inextricable link between race and maternity, “Most of the women who came to early European settlements in North America did so as forced migrants from Africa, and their race and fertility were the foundational elements of the first slave laws enacted by Europeans” (Snyder). If a child was born to an enslaved woman than the child inherited that status. In addition, laws were not put in place to penalize slave owners that raped enslaved women. Due to the lack of legal protection, women had no recourse for sexual abuse.

            To continue perpetuating pro-slavery and anti-Black attitudes performance and blackness coincide in the form on minstrel shows. This later evolved to white actors portraying blackness in an unfavorable exaggerated manner that worked to frame slavery in a lighthearted comedic way (source).

            Furthermore, the history of race in early America sheds light on attitudes and beliefs that are still held today. These power dynamics still exist as evidenced by police brutality that disproportionately targets black people. Media depictions of black people are archaic, tired, and unimaginative. I often watch shows with black actors playing roles where they are expected to perform blackness that, to me, is reminiscent of a minstrel show. To conclude, race is such a broad topic and the axes I used to discuss this topic only scratches the surface of its significance in society.

by mchipman00

           

Works Cited

Retrieved October 03, 2016, from http://www.mixedracestudies.org/?p=48801

https://digitalgallery.bgsu.edu/student/exhibits/show/race-in-us/african-americans/performance-and-spectacle

Scott, W. R., & Shade, W. G. (2000). Upon these shores: Themes in the African American experience, 1600 to the present. New York: Routledge.

Snyder, T. (2015-09-03). Women, Race, and the Law in Early America. American History: Oxford Research Encyclopedias. Retrieved 3 Oct. 2016