Existing comment:
Creating Race:
Race was not found in nature but made by people in power. Racial classification provided a way to justify privilege and oppression by making inequality appear to be the result of natural differences.
Pre-1492: A time before race:
The concept of race -- as a way to divide and rank people peoples of the world -- does not exist in Europe. The primary measure of difference used is religion. There are Christian peoples and there are heathens, which include Jews, Muslims and pagans. Some Europeans own slaves, but slavery is based n the slaves' status as non-Christians, not on their skin color or "race".
"Expansion, conquest, exploitation, and enslavement have characterized much of human history over the past 5,000 years or so, but none of these events before the modern era resulted in the development of ideologies or social systems based on race."
-- Audrey Smedley, Race in North America: Origin and Evolution of a Worldview (1999)
1492: Columbus arrives:
In the same year Columbus arrives in the Americas, the Jews are expelled from Spain.
1500s: The Great Chain of Being:
In the 1500s, Europeans see the world as organized into a divinely ordained hierarchy, or "Great Chain of Being." When they begin sorting peoples of the world into races, in the 1600s, this idea persists, and it contributes to the notion that races, too, might be ranked -- like all other beings. |