AHIS 100

Defining Race in America

Dr. Kane

mkane2@albany.edu

Office Hrs: W 10:30-11:30 & F 11:30-12:30

Social Science 60S


maevekane.net/ahis100/lecture-slides

November 9

to recap

  • western migration
  • changing Indian policy
  • ecological change
  • Mexican-American War
  • Plains Indian Wars
  • land, labor and identity

today

  • how is/was race defined in the US?
  • multiple ways of defining race
  • are Mexicans white?
  • are Asians white?
  • what about mixed race or multi-racial people?
  • political consequences of race

why did white southerners believe that a system of racial slavery was important to maintain?

(more than one right answer)

      A. they believed slavery protected enslaved African Americans from poverty and idleness
      B. they believed that slavery was a necessary evil and could be ended once plantations were no longer economically viable
      C. they believed blacks and whites were so politically incompatible that emancipation would lead to race war
      D. they believed that slavery would gradually educate enslaved African Americans how to be citizens

race as a social construct

  • phenotype - collection of physical traits
  • physical traits are associated with character traits (criminality, intelligence, political eligibility)
  • association of traits is arbitrary and not based in biology
  • just because race is a social construct does not mean that racial identity is not important or that the consequences of racial hierarchies are not real

The Great Orphan Train Scandal

  • no welfare, child protection services or foster care
  • part of broader religious reform movements
  • Mariposa Arizona, 1860
  • 40 Irish Catholic orphans from NYC fostered in Mexican Catholic families
  • Anglo-Protestant riot three days after arrival
  • are Catholics Americans? are Mexicans Americans?

Chinese immigration and exclusion

  • earliest Chinese immigrants to Mexico in 1520
  • 1790 Naturalization Act - only "free white persons" of "good character" can become citizens
  • increase of Chinese, Korean and Japanese immigration during California gold rush 1850s
  • chain migration and temporary migration
  • 350 Chinese men lynched 1850-1880

why did these racial lines matter so much?

(discuss with a partner, full points for all answers)

      A. many believed that citizens in a republican democracy had to be very similar in order for it to function
      B. the United States had grown out of a British colony and many white Americans believed that only British or European people could participate politically
      C. many Americans believed that God had created separate races or even entirely separate Creations
      D. without clear lines between white and black, racial slavery is philosophically impossible

anti-miscegenation laws

  • racial categorization depends on clearly defined racial lines
  • first in Virginia in 1660s
  • 40 of 50 states had anti-race-mixing laws until 1976
  • census classification by phenotype - pencil test and ancestry up through 1986

race and labor unions

  • National Labor Union and Knights of Labor
  • established to fight for 10 hour day, family wage, and protection for women and child workers
  • worked to exclude Chinese, Hispanic and free black workers "for driving down wages"
  • broad industrial unions - organized all white workers
  • walkouts and strikes to protest hiring of non-white workers

era of compromise 1820 - 1850

  • 1820 Missouri Compromise - Maine is free, Missouri is slave, keeps balance in the Senate
  • helped postpone the Civil War?
  • Compromise of 1850 - California admitted free, Texas admitted slave, passage of Fugitive Slave Act
  • 1854 Kansas-Nebraska Act - legality of slavery is voted by popular sovereignty

era of compromise 1820 - 1850

  • 1820 Missouri Compromise - Maine is free, Missouri is slave, keeps balance in the Senate
  • helped postpone the Civil War?
  • Compromise of 1850 - California admitted free, Texas admitted slave, passage of Fugitive Slave Act
  • 1854 Kansas-Nebraska Act - legality of slavery is voted by popular sovereignty

1850 Fugitive Slave Act

  • 1793 Fugitive Slave Act - required return but not really enforced
  • 1850 Fugitive Slave Act - 6 months jail and $1000 for aiding an escape
  • raids and kidnappings in free black communities - required only the affidavit of a white person saying the kidnapped person was a slave
  • 12 Years a Slave - born in NY, kidnapped in DC
  • "slave power conspiracy" - radicalizes the North
  • which states' rights?