| Chapter 1: | Reconsiderations of Race, Ethnicity, and Identity: Transnational Migrants in Post–World War II Global Society |
Banton (1987) and Wade (1997) state that, until the nineteenth century, the great monotheistic, Abrahamic-based religions (Judaism, Christianity, and Islam) implicitly accepted almost without question the monogenesis theory of human origins. According to this story, all people were children of Abraham (who was the tenth-generation descendant of Noah). The different skin colors supposedly gave an indication of different social ranking, and the mothers of the children of Abraham had different skin colors and different social status. After having the child Ishmael, Hagar (an Egyptian slave girl with dark skin) disobeyed her master, Sarah, the first wife of Abraham. Hagar, thus, broke social convention displaying her immorality. Skin color, then, became blended with social ranking and morality when people began classifying the world. We could interpret the story as saying that one group—white, upper class, and moral—existed in contrast to the other—colored, lower class, and immoral.
According to Smedley (2007), African slaves were first brought to America through Europe in the early seventeenth century. But many of these slaves were already familiar with European culture and came to the United States with Portuguese and Spanish names. At this time African slavery was not as institutionalized as it would later become; masters simply saw slaves as indentured labor. At the same time, men who purchased rights to indentured laborers treated them as if they were slaves. Thus, in this period black men and white men serving the same master worked, ate, and slept together, and together shared in escapades, escapes, and punishments. Servants were often called slaves, and a distinction between servitude and slavery was not at all clear. Intermarriages between white servants and black slaves were common during this period (cf. Parent 2003). Smedley (2007) then states that during this era “black” people were categorized by social class, but not by their physical affinity.
Since capitalism and colonialism brought a high demand for plantation workers, plantation owners sought laborers who were immune to harsh natural conditions such as hot climates and tropical diseases. As a result, Africans were targeted as labor for the plantations, and large numbers of slaves were sent directly from Africa to North and South America. These Africans were not familiar with Western culture, languages, or religions.