EXTRA CREDIT- Race: The Power of the Illusion

The idea of race has been around for a long time. The first slaves in Virginia were brought over in 1619. At this time, religion played a larger role than race when it came down to the issue of who was to be considered a slave, and who was not. Those such as Indians, who were not Christian were seen as savages and called slaves. Eventually, the classification for slaves became based on race. Being a Christian was no longer important and white skin color became commonly use. At this time, slavery and blackness came together and everything about the relationship between blacks and slavery grew to be natural.
Thomas Jefferson personally owned 125 slaves at one point. He was the first person to develop race and he took part in writing the Declaration of Independence. Many began to question how he, an owner of 125 slaves, supported and signed a document that was stating things about equality in ways such as “all men are created equal.”
The next thing on Jefferson’s mind was the Indians. He believed that although the Indians were savages, they could still be civilized. Jefferson had very little contact with the Indians and decided that the easiest and cheapest way to avoid war and take their land was through civilization. His idea was to make Indians into “brown-white men.” Jefferson believed that what made black people inferior to white people was scientific.
The video goes on to discuss Jackson’s plan of action with the Indians. He believed that people of similar race should be in the same nations. In order to justify the removal of the Indians he blamed them for their lack of intelligence and their savagery and therefore they should disappear. In 1838, the U.S. army forced Cherokees out of the Georgia land by gunpoint. Then, in 1848, the U.S. went to war with Mexico for even more land because they believed the west belonged to white Americans. After the war, the U.S. received one-third of Mexico’s land.
The conclusion to the scientific observation between blacks and whites was that slaves were not able to exit in a white society because they were inferior. Some people even came to believe that slaves were of a different specie than whites and that no two distinctly marked races could reside together.
The conflicts of slavery lead the U.S. to war. Everything that people believed seems so outrageous. Poor white were told to be proud and thankful that they were at least white. This statement seemed funny to me because although these whites were poor the fact that they were white was an honor. What if the U.S. army went into black people’s homes today and held them at gunpoint in order to take over their house? The U.S. government would be able to get anything they wanted through this method they used many years ago.