# Historical Foundations of Race **Covers**:: **Source**:: [Historical Foundations of Race](https://nmaahc.si.edu/learn/talking-about-race/topics/historical-foundations-race) **Creator**:: [[nmaahc.si.edu]] # Highlights ##### ^222800096 ###### ^222800096q American society developed the notion of race early in its formation to justify its new economic system of capitalism, which depended on the institution of forced labor, especially the enslavement of African peoples ^222800096 ##### ^222800097 ###### ^222800097q The term “race,” used infrequently before the 1500s, was used to identify groups of people with a kinship or group connection ^222800097 ##### ^222800098 ###### ^222800098q European Enlightenment philosophers’ based their ideas on the importance of secular reasoning, rationality, and scientific study, as opposed to faith-based religious understandings of the world. ^222800098 ##### ^222800099 ###### ^222800099q Over centuries, the false notion that “white” people were inherently smarter, more capable, and more human than nonwhite people became accepted worldwide. This categorization of people became a justification for European colonization and subsequent enslavement of people from Africa. ^222800099 ##### ^222800100 ###### ^222800100q peoples of darker skin, such as people from the African continent, were not automatically enslaved or considered slaves ^222800100 ##### ^222800101 ###### ^222800101q Activist Paul Kivel says, “Whiteness is a constantly shifting boundary separating those who are entitled to have certain privileges from those whose exploitation and vulnerability to violence is justified by their not being white ^222800101 ##### ^222800102 ###### ^222800102q The social inventions succeeded in uniting the white colonists, dispossessing and marginalizing native people, and permanently enslaving most African-descended people for generations. Tragically,  American culture, from the very beginning, developed around the ideas of race and racism. ^222800102 ##### ^222800103 ###### ^222800103q Historically, who belonged to the category of “white” would expand as people wanted to push back against the increasing numbers of people of color due to emancipation and immigration. ^222800103 ##### ^222800104 ###### ^222800104q By categorizing humans by “race,” a new hierarchy was invented based on what many considered science ^222800104 ##### ^222800105 ###### ^222800105q Race is the child of racism, not the father. TA-NEHISI COATES ^222800105 ##### ^222800106 ###### ^222800106q By the late 1600s, significant shifts began to happen in the colonies. As the survival of European immigrants increased, there were more demands for land and the labor needed to procure wealth. Indentured servitude lost its attractiveness as it became economically less profitable to utilize servants of European descent ^222800106 ##### ^222800107 ###### ^222800107q Characterizations of Africans in the early period of colonial America were mostly positive, and the colonists saw their future as dependent on this source of labor ^222800107 ##### ^222800108 ###### ^222800108q Labor status was not permanent nor solely connected to race. A significant turning point came in 1662 when Virginia enacted a law of hereditary slavery, which meant the status of the mother determined the status of the child ^222800108 ##### ^222800109 ###### ^222800109q This new law deemed it legal to keep enslaved people in bondage even if they converted to Christianity. With this decree, the justification for black servitude changed from a religious status to a designation based on race. ^222800109 ##### ^222800110 ###### ^222800110q New generations of Americans, many born in the colonies, seized upon ideas like that of John Locke’s “Social Contract” which argues that all people naturally had a right to life, liberty and property, and that any created government is legitimate only with the consent of those people being governed ^222800110