Was there racism throughout history? Since the beginning, the United States of America has faced a problem with believing that any white man is superior above all other races. Starting on October 1492, when Christopher Columbus landed in the Bahamas, claiming it for Spain, there was a sense of racism at the first sight of the Native Americans. Seeing such a naked, uncultured, and different society would only increase the white man’s sense of superiority he would feel for many years to come. The feeling of racism that white men felt over all races seemed to increase as they shipped African-Americans to the United States in 1619. While racism started with the colonist towards the Native Americans it only increased the cash crops industry targeting African Americans.
Once Columbus steps foot on the sand he is greeted by the Native Americans, with the natives offering anything they have on them and only with kindness. Not soon after this Columbus says,
“And I believe and still believe that they come from the mainland to take them for slaves. They should be good servants and of quick intelligence, since I see that they very soon say all that is said to them, and I believe that they would easily be made Christians, for it appeared to me that they had no creed. Our Lord willing, at this time of my next departure I will bring back six of them to Your Highness, that they may learn to talk” (The Journal of Christopher Columbus pg.24).
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Instantly, racism is brought into play by thinking that the natives do not have a language and are inferior to Columbus and his men. Columbus does not talk about trying to get the natives into an indentured servitude like the one that already exists back in Spain. Even though the natives do in fact, have their own form of language and religion, Columbus wastes no time in making assumptions. Columbus believed that the natives not only had no religion or language of their own but that they showed, “no more embarrassment than animals” (Zinn pg.4). Extreme racism is present at the very moment when Columbus first saw the natives, comparing them to mere animals.
Only a couple days after Columbus’ arrival he noticed the natives possessed gold and used beautiful stones as jewelry. Columbus immediately set out wanting “to seek the gold and precious stones” (The Journal of Christopher Columbus pg. 26). The desire to obtain these beautiful stones and gold is what created the need for the slavery in North America. A great amount of manpower was needed start looking for gold in the rivers and hills. Since Columbus and his men had iron swords and guns, he believed they were superior.
As Columbus and his men needed to have complete power, they showed how they thought they were the better race over the natives. Since Columbus had no gold to send back to Spain, his men rounded up over fifteen hundred Arawak men, women, and children to select the best five hundred to send back to his homeland. Most of the Arawak died on this journey or soon after arrival. Columbus had to make good on paying back his dividends and promised the next ship would be full of gold.
Within the next several months Columbus set out to gather as many natives in order to have slaves to work in the mines to collect as much gold as possible. Because Columbus had made a promise to his homeland to send back ships full of gold, he “ordered all persons fourteen years or older to collect a certain quantity of gold every three months. When they brought it, they were given copper tokens to hang around their necks. Indians found without a copper token had their hands cut off and bled to death” (Zinn pg. 4).
This racism set an impossible task for the natives that were forced to look for gold in the places that it hardly existed. With the harsh punishments and unrealistic tasks set for the natives, many revolts and riots started to breakout. Columbus’ only means of stopping these riots was, “a brutal crackdown in which many natives were killed; in an attempt to deter further rebellion” (History.com). After killing many natives off, this created a new need for another type of slavery and racism in a society that would be easier to control.
Another example of extreme racism took place in 1619, which marked the arrival of the first shipment of twenty African Americans to America. These African American men that were shipped to America were treated just like the natives and possibly even worse. The African Americans were taken away from their families, home, and religions making them helpless and an easier target for enslavement.
This is where racism really started to take off with, “the frenzy for limitless profit that comes from capitalistic agriculture; the reduction of the slave to less than human status by the use of racial hatred, with that relentless clarity based on color, where white was the master, black was the slave” (Zinn pg. 28). With many sugar, tobacco, and cotton (cash crops) on the rise through a majority of the southern part of the country, the free labor source was going to start having to produce a large amount wanted by the landowners. This racism not only ruined the lives of the slaves, but also the owners of the slaves. In one case where a slave talks about how his owner,
“Slavery proved as injurious to her as it did to me. When I went there, she was a pious, warm, and tender-hearted woman. There was no sorrow or suffering for which she had not a tear. She had bread for the hungry, clothes for the naked, and comfort for every mourner that came within her reach. Slavery soon proved its ability to divest her of these heavenly qualities. Under its influence, the tender heart became stone, and the lamblike disposition gave way to one of tiger-like fierceness” (Douglass 7.2 pg. 190).
The owner was a nice woman that treated the slaves like people, but throughout the time she hardened herself because the way racism starts to ruin people and societies.
Racism made white Americans think that they had the right at any time to take African American slaves away from their families, whip/punish them, sell, or kill them. The slaves were forced to live in tiny shacks that would contained a greater number of people living in it than the maximum capacity allows. The children did not go to school and were not able to receive an education unless their caregivers were educated. African American women were raped by white men and there would be no repercussions for the white men. Then, once the child was born the mother would have to work out in the fields with a newborn baby. Most African American children did not live past their teens during this due to sickness and lack of food.
In conclusion, racism started in the United States of American as soon as Columbus step foot on the land and is arguably still present in modern times in the United States. Racism affects many families and has changed history. Columbus and his men had no idea what that their actions and racist behavior would continue and be consistently present in history. Thousands of Native Americans were killed due to riots against slavery for their race. These riots created a need for African American slavery that would cost thousands of lives throughout history. Racism is something that affected both of these societies and made a huge mark in history that can never be changed.
Work Cited
- Douglass, Frederick. Douglass. Literary Classics of the United States, Inc., 1994.
- Columbus, Christopher. The Journal of Christopher Columbus. Clarkson N. Potter, Inc., 1960.
- Zinn, Howard. A People’s History of the United States. Harper Perennial Modern Classics. 1990.
- “Columbus Controversy.” A+E Networks. History.com, 2009,
- http://www.history.com/topics/exploration/columbus-controversy
