How do anti-black prejudices grow into an ideology of white supremacy?
The 19th century is a period of radical transformation of slavery. And with the radical transformation of slavery comes a radical transformation of ideas about race. Some of those ideas are a product of the slave holder’s response to the growing anti-slavery movement. Public opinion throughout the world is turning against the institution of slavery. Slaveholders have to defend this institution of slavery in new ways. And this pushes them to new ideas about race. They start talking about the childlike nature of slaves, simple folk incapable of full adulthood, of protecting themselves, in need of a master. Hence slavery, they claim, is a benevolent institution. Very, very few slave holders spoke about their slaves that way in the 18th century. Some slave holders seemed to go in the opposite direction, depicting slaves as inhuman beasts, always ready to revolt, to plant a hatchet in the back of their owner’s head. So, if we have the image of the slave child, we also have the image of the
