The Invention of the White Race, Volume 1When the first Africans arrived in Virginia in 1619, there were no "white" people there; nor, according to colonial records, would there be for another sixty years. Historical debate about the origin of racial slavery has focused on the status of the Negro in seventeenth-century Virginia and Maryland. However, as Theodore W. Allen argues in this magisterial work, what needs to be studied is the transformation of English, Scottish, Irish and other European colonists from their various statuses as servants, tenants, planters or merchants into a single new all-inclusive status: that of whites. This is the key to the paradox of American history, of a democracy resting on race assumptions. Volume One of this two-volume work attempts to escape the "white blind spot" which has distorted consecutive studies of the issue. It does so by looking in the mirror of Irish history for a definition of racial oppression and for an explanation of that phenomenon in terms of social control, free from the absurdities of classification by skin color. Compelling analogies are presented between the history of Anglo-Irish and British rule in Ireland and American White Supremacist oppression of Indians and African-Americans. But the relativity of race is shown in the sea change it entailed, whereby emigrating Irish haters of racial oppression were transformed into White Americans who defended it. The reasons for the differing outcomes of Catholic Emancipation and Negro Emancipation are considered and occasion is made to demonstrate Allen's distinction between racial and national oppression. |
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abolitionist African African-Americans American Ascendancy authority Black bond-laborers bourgeoisie British British West Indies called Catholic cause century Chapter cited City civil colonial common constitutional course difference early economic edited effect Emancipation England English equal establishment European-Americans fact force hand Henry historian History House Hughes Ibid immigrants Indian Industrial interest Ireland Irish Irish-Americans James John Jordan king labor land later leader less letter London Lord majority March native natural Negro North noted O'Connell original Parliament Party Penal period persons plantation political population practice present principle privileges Protestant Public question race racial oppression record regard relations Repeal ruling slave slaveholders slavery social control Society South Southern tenants thousand trade tribal Ulster Union United Virginia vols wage West workers writes York
References to this book
White Nation: Fantasies of White Supremacy in a Multicultural Society Ghassan Hage No preview available - 2000 |
How Jews Became White Folks and what that Says about Race in America Karen Brodkin Limited preview - 1998 |
Bibliographic information
| Title | The Invention of the White Race, Volume 1 Volume 1 of Haymarket series The Invention of the White Race, Theodore W. Allen |
| Author | Theodore W. Allen |
| Publisher | Verso, 1994 |
| ISBN | 086091660X, 9780860916604 |
| Length | 310 pages |
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