“The term 'Caucasian' as a designation for white people originates in concepts of beauty related to the white slave trade from eastern Europe, and whiteness remains embedded in visions of beauty found in art history and popular culture.”
― Nell Irvin Painter, in "The History of White People"; W. W. Norton (2010); ISBN 978-0-393-07949-4; a 'New York Times' bestseller
"The still current term #Caucasian connects directly to collective degradation, in the form of the gendered, eastern slave trade, via the network of learned societies that so deeply influenced the #historyOfScience in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries."
“It is still assumed, wrongly, that slavery anywhere in the world must rest on a foundation of racial difference. Time and again, the better classes have concluded that those people deserve their lot; it must be something within them that puts them at the bottom. In modern times, we recognize this kind of reasoning as it relates to black race, but in other times the same logic was applied to people who were white, especially when they were impoverished immigrants seeking work.”
― Nell Irvin Painter, in "The History of White People"; W. W. Norton (2010); ISBN 978-0-393-07949-4; a 'New York Times' bestseller
“It is difficult to picture the rich, hard-nosed advisors of James I being overly concerned about the rights of vagabonds and felons. But this was a period that was especially suspicious of arbitrary acts by the Crown against individuals. There was no law enabling the crown to exile anyone, including the baser convict, into forced labour. According to legal scholars, the Magna Carta itself protected even them. The Privy Councillors therefore dressed up what was to befall the convicts and presented the decree authorising their transportation as an act of royal mercy. The convicts were to be reprieved from death in exchange for accepting transportation. (71)”
― Don Jordan and Michael Walsh, "White Cargo: The Forgotten History of Britain's White Slaves in America" (2007)
“It is difficult to picture the rich, hard-nosed advisors of James I being overly concerned about the rights of vagabonds and felons. But this was a period that was especially suspicious of arbitrary acts by the Crown against individuals. There was no law enabling the crown to exile anyone, including the baser convict, into forced labour. According to legal scholars, the Magna Carta itself protected even them. The Privy Councillors therefore dressed up what was to befall the convicts and presented the decree authorising their transportation as an act of royal mercy. The convicts were to be reprieved from death in exchange for accepting transportation.” (p. 71)
― Don Jordan and Michael Walsh, "White Cargo: The Forgotten History of Britain's White Slaves in America" (2007)
⸺ @history@histodons
(to be continued) 🧶
"By this time in the seventeenth century, those who came from the British Isles, both men and women, outnumbered the Africans in the tobacco fields; even in the middle of the century, when the settler population in #Virginia numbered about 11,000, the Africans accounted for only about 300. Any one of them - African, English, Scottish or Irish - should count himself lucky if he outlived his contract. Of 300 children who came from Britain between 1619 and 1622, only 12 were still alive in 1624."
… wrote #NellIrvinPainter in her book "The History of White People"
cited by Don Jordan and Michael Walsh, "White Cargo: The Forgotten History of Britain's White Slaves in America" (2007)
"Of course, one day the indentured period would end and the servant would be free. That is one of the fundamental differences drawn between white indentured servitude and black slavery. One was a temporary condition; the other was perpetual. Except that huge numbers of white servants didn’t live to see the day of freedom. In the early days, the majority of servants died still in bondage. Moreover, the bulk of those who did outlive their servitude ended up no better than when they’d arrived. They would emerge from bondage landless and poor (p. 111)."
― Don Jordan and Michael Walsh, "White Cargo: The Forgotten History of Britain's White Slaves in America" (2007)
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