An excellent study of why white men thought blacks were inferior and preferred as chattel slaves, and the psychological effects of slavery on slaveowners. ( )

Jordan, Winthrop D. White Over Black: American Attitudes Toward the Negro, 1550-
1812. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1968.

Prejudices—like it or not, we all have them. Try as we might, they are quite difficult to remove from our worldviews. Of course, admitting they are there is certainly a step in the right direction. Once we have made that step, though, what comes next? Perhaps, the first thing we must do in order to deal with our prejudices is to comprehend from whence they came. Winthrop Jordan has this task in mind in the pages of White Over Black: American Attitudes Toward the Negro, 1550-1812. His central argument in these pages is that while racism did not initially drive the colonists to enslave blacks, the notion of an innate hereditary inferiority on the part of Africans and African Americans eventually coalesced in the early Republic, fostered by the environmentalism of the Revolutionary period. Despite its weaknesses, White Over Black not only took the study of American slavery in new directions when it was first published, it continues to challenge and to inform the best work in the field today.
“What were the attitudes of white men toward Negroes during the first two centuries of European and African settlement in what became the United States of America?â€? (vii) Seeking to answer that question, Jordan begins his intellectual analysis of the origins of American slavery by addressing the English attitudes of Africans before the advent of the institution. He rather persuasively shows that in their initial contacts the English “met Negroes merely as another sort of men,â€? albeit a radically different sort (42). He then moves to discuss the beginnings of slavery in the New World, stressing the unintentional nature (or as his chapter title states, “Unthinking Decisionâ€?) of the entire enterprise. In this chapter, Jordan suggests that the English were more interested in slavery as the most efficient form of labor available to them and not necessarily as a way to exercise their preconceived notions concerning the inferiority of Africans. In his estimation, that came later in the process.
The second portion of the book deals with the development of a slave society in the English colonies. In order for such a system to succeed, there must be processes in place in order to control the labor force. Thus, Jordan turns to the development of a master-slave relationship, which is fraught with the problems of discipline, control, and freedom. Even more daunting in the integration of these two “differentâ€? sorts of men were the white attitudes toward interracial sex. This struggle to preserve these two sorts of men precipitated the search for differences and similarities, both spiritual and physical. Again, Jordan asserts that whites concluded that in spite of these differences, both sorts were men—the differences were only skin deep. He claims, however, that any “major shift in the way in which white societies regarded themselves and their own society was bound to affect their views of the Negroâ€? (265).
In the third portion of the book, such a change revolutionized the ways whites thought about blacks. As whites thought about notions of liberty, freedom, and natural rights, they were forced, Jordan claims, to give up their unthinking decisions and acquiescence to the form of labor that has developed in their midst—racial slavery. He asserts that the American Revolution proved the turning point in American society, forcing the crystallization of modern racism.
The final two sections of the book illustrate the development of this racism in the generation following the Revolution. Thus, nearly half the book is devoted to the forty years following the formation of the United States and the maturation of a racist ideology. First, Jordan analyzes the society in which such an ideology thrived. Treating the economic, political, and cultural contexts of these forty years, he demonstrates that “the hardening of slavery and the separation of free and religious Negroes from the white community…was in virtual lockstep with economic changes, with the integration of the unified nation, with the course of antislavery, and with the pattern of slave rebelliousnessâ€? (xii). Second, he depicts the ideology behind such a society. Beginning with Thomas Jefferson, he attempts to demonstrate the ways in which early Americans were divided over the issue of slavery. While many might have wished it could be abolished, they also knew it was indispensable to the fledgling country. With men and women like Jefferson, not to mention those who were adamant supporters of the institution, the nation had to dive even deeper into the troubled waters of slavery and racism. In order to put and keep the black slave “in his place,â€? whites appealed to innate, hereditary inferiorities that could never be erased. In short, what “American intellectuals did in the post-Revolutionary decades was, in effect, to claim America as a white man’s countryâ€? (xiii).
Like truly great works, White Over Black remains challenging and insightful even forty years later. At the time of this volume’s publication, Jordan revised the works of both Oscar and Mary Handlin and Carl Degler. His work, however, continues to revise, drive, and question much current scholarship. Our readings for today illustrate this fact rather well. For instance, Part I of Ira Berlin’s Many Thousands Gone sounds reminiscent to the first two sections of White Over Black. Even though Berlin defines his colonies as “societies with slaves,â€? his and Jordan’s claims are very similar. For example, they both recognize slavery as one labor system among many (albeit the most advantageous one for whites) and they both suggest that the respective communities were struggling to determine the best way to control their slaves within their present systems. Edmund Morgan also builds on some of the same themes, especially the notion that English colonists decided to move into slavery without an intentional decision on their part. In “The African Experience,â€? John Thornton does what Jordan (and many subsequent scholars) failed to do. He looks at African culture, seeking not only to explain features of slavery from their perspective, but also to point out what slaves possibly brought into the institution. While many historians disagree with elements of Jordan’s thesis, no colonial American scholar, especially those even slightly interested in issues of race, can afford to neglect White Over Black. It may not give all the answers, but it certainly provides a wonderful foundation upon which to build a history of the origins and development of American slavery.

Charity store find a few weeks ago. Forgot to add it. Mine has a different cover.