Dominant minority relations in america

4 The Developmeml 0f

D0minant-Min0rity {;roup Relations in Preindustrial America

The Origins of Slavery

No man can put a chain about the ankle of his fellow man without at last finding the other end fastened about his own neck.

- Frederick Douglass (1818-1895) ex~slave, abolitionist, orator, author

Washington, D.C. 1883

F com the first settlements in the 1600s until the 19th century, most people living in what was to become the United States relied directly on farming for food, shelter, and other necessities of life. In an agricultural society, land and labor are central concerns, and the struggle to control these resources led directly to the creation of minority group status for three groups: African Americans, American Indians, and Mexican Americans. Why did the colonists create slavery? Why were Africans enslaved but not American Indians or Europeans? Why did American Indians lose their land and most of their population by the 1890s? How did the Mexican population in the Southwest become "Mexican Americans"? How did the experience of becoming a subordinated minority group vary by gender?

In this chapter, the concepts introduced in Part I will be used to answer these questions. Some new ideas and theories will also be introduced, and by the end of the chapter, we will have developed a theoretical model of the process that leads to the creation of a minority

147

Healey, Joseph F. 2012. Race, Ethnicity, Gender, and Class: The Sociology of Group Conflict and Change. Sixth Edition. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

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148 PART 11 THE EVOLUTION OF DOMINANT-MINORITY RELATIONS INTHE UNITED STATES

group. The creation of black slavery in colonial America, arguably the single most significant event in the early years of this nation, will be used to illustrate the process of minority group creation. We will also consider the subordination of American Indians and Mexican Americans-- two more historical events of great significance-as additional case studies. We will follow the experiences of African Americans through the days of segregation (Chapter 5) and into the contemporary era (Chapter 6). The story of the development of minority group status for American Indians and Mexican Americans will be picked up again in Chapters 7 and 8, respectively.

Two broad themes underlie this chapter and, indeed, the remainder of the text:

1. The nature of dominant-minority group relations at any point in time is largely a function of the characteristics of the society as a whole. The situation of a minority group will reflect the realities of everyday social life and particularly the subsistence technology (the means by which the society satisfies basic needs, such as food and shelter). As explained by Gerhard Lenski (see Chapter 1), the subsistence technology of a society acts as a foundation, shaping and affecting every other aspect of the social structure, including minority group relations.

2. The contact situation-the conditions under which groups first come together-is the single most significant factor in the creation of minority group status. The nature of the contact situation has long-lasting consequences for the minority group and the extent of racial or ethnic stratification, the levels of racism and prejudice, the possibilities for assimilation and pluralism, and virtually every other aspect of the dominant-minority relationship.

THE ORIGINS OF SLAVERY IN AMERICA

By the early 1600s, Spanish explorers had conquered much of Central and South America, and the influx of gold, silver, and other riches from the New World had made Spain a

fill powerful nation. Following Spain's lead, England proceeded to establish its presence in the Audio Link 4.1 Western Hemisphere, but its efforts at colonization were more modest than those of Spain.

Slavery and Africa's By the early 1600s, only two small colonies had been established: Plymouth, settled by pious Cultural Achievement Protestant families, and Jamestown, populated primarily by males seeking their fortunes.

By 1619, the British colony at Jamestown, Virginia, had survived for more than a decade. The residents of the settlement had fought with the local natives and struggled continuously to eke out a living from the land. Starvation, disease, and death were frequent visitors, and the future of the enterprise continued to be in doubt.

In August of that year, a Dutch ship arrived. The master of the ship needed provisions and offered to trade his only cargo: about 20 black Africans. Many of the details of this transac- tion have been lost, and we probably will never know exactly how these people came to be chained in the hold of a ship. Regardless, this brief episode was a landmark event in the formation of what would become the United Stares. In combination with the strained rela- tions between the English settlers and American Indians, the presence of these first few Africans raised an issue that never has been fully resolved: How should different groups in this society relate to one another?

The colonists at Jamestown had no ready answer. In 1619, England and its colonies did not practice slavery, so these first Africans were probably incorporated into colonial society as indentured servants, contract laborers who arc obligated to serve a master for a specific number of years. At the end of the indenture, or contract, the servant became a free citizen. The colonies depended heavily on indentured servants from the British Isles for labor, and

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Chapter 4 The Development of Dominant-Minority Group Relations in Preindustrial America 149

Livingstone (1874, p. 62).

Drake ( 1860, p. 28). Library of Congress, Prints and Pholographs Division, LC·USZ62·30818.

To provide labor for American plantations, slaves were kidnapped from their villages in Africa and marched to the sea, a journey that sometimes covered hundreds of miles. They were loaded aboard slave ships and packed tightly below decks. The "Middle Passage" across the Atlantic could take months.

this status apparently provided a convenient way of defining the newcomers from Africa, who -sl were, after all, treated as commodities and exchanged for food and water (see Exhibit 4.1 for 11111 a map of slave trade from Africa). Video Link 4.1

The position of African indentured servants in the colonies remained ambiguous for History of Slavery several decades. American slavery evolved gradually and in small steps; in fact, there was in America little demand for African labor during the years following 1619. By 1625, there still were only 23 blacks in Virginia, and that number had increa~ed to perhaps 300 by midcentury (Franklin & Moss, 1994, p. 5 7). In the decades before the dawn of slavery, we know that some African indentured servants did become free citizens. Some became successful farmers

150

Exhibit 4.1 The African Diaspora

PART II THE EVOLUTION OF DOMINANT-MINORITY RELATIONS IN THE UNITED STATES

North Amcrfcu

~ Amcricu

Mrio.slave Tnldetothe. ""-leas 1eoo to 1800

T.J:IEAFRfCAN DlAS.P@RA

NOTE The size of the arrows is proportional to lhe number of slaves. Note that the bulk wcnl 10 South America and that there were also flows lo Europe and Asia.

SOURCE From Williams. Macmillan Encyclopedia of World Slavery, 1 E. © 1998 Gale, a part of Ccngage Leaming. Inc. Reproduced by permission. www.cengage.com/permissions.

and landowners and, like their white neighbors, purchased African and white indentured servants themselves (Smedley, 2007, p. 104). By the 1650s, however, many African Americans (and their offspring) were being treated as the property of others, or in other words, as slaves (Morgan, 1975, p. 154).

It was not until the 1660s that the first laws defining slavery were enacted. In the century that followed, hundreds of additional laws were passed to clarify and formalize the status of Africans in colonial America. By the 1750s, slavery had been clearly defined in law and in custom, and the idea that a person could own another person-not just the labor or the energy or the work of a person, but the actual person-had been thoroughly institutionalized.

What caused slavery? The gradual evolution of and low demand for indentured servants from Africa suggest that slavery was not somehow inevitable or preordained. Why did the colonists deliberately create this repressive ·system? Why did they reach out all the way to Africa for their slaves? If they wanted to create a slave system, why didn't they enslave the American Indians nearby or the white indentured servants already present in the colonies?

Q:

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Chapter 4 The Development of Dominant-Minority Group Relations in Preindustrial America

The Labor Supply Problem

American colonists of the 1600s saw slavery as a solution to several problems they faced. The business of the colonies was agriculture, and farm work at this time was labor-intensive, performed almost entirely by hand. The Industrial Revolution was two centuries in the future, and there were few machines or labor-saving devices available to ease the everyday burden of work. A successful harvest depended largely on human effort.

As colonial society grew and developed, a specific form of agricultural production began to emerge. The plantation system was based on cultivating and exporting crops such as sugar; tobacco, and rice on large tracts of land using a large, cheap labor force. Profit margins tended to be small, so planters sought to stabilize their incomes by keeping the costs of production as low as possible. Profits in the labor-intensive plantation system could be maximized if a large, disciplined, and cheap workforce could be maintained by the landowners (Curtin, 1990; Morgan, 1975).

At about the same time the plantation system began to emerge, the supply of white inden- tured servants from the British Isles began to dwindle. Furthermore, the white indentured servants who did come to the colonies had to be released from their indenture every few years. Land

151

1

' Journal Link 4.1 · New World Slavery

was available, and these newly freed citizens tended to strike out on their own. Thus, landowners who relied on white indentured servants had to deal with high turnover rates in their workforces and faced a continually uncertain supply of labor.

TOBESOLD&LET Attempts to solve the labor supply problem by

using American Indians failed. The tribes closest to the colonies were sometimes exploited for man- power. However, by the time the plantation system had evolved, the local tribes had dwindled in num- bers as a result of warfare and disease. Other Indian nations across the continent retained enough power to resist enslavement, and it was relatively easy for American Indians to escape back to their kinfolk.

This left black Africans as a potential source of manpower. The slave trade from Africa to the Spanish and Portuguese colonies of South America had been established in the 1500s and could be expanded to fill the needs of the British colonies as well. The colonists came to see slaves imported from Africa as the most logical, cost-effective way to solve their vexing short- age of labor. The colonists created slavery to cultivate their lands and generate profits, status, and success. The paradox at the core of U.S. society had been established: The construction of a social system devoted to freedom and individual liberty "in the New World was made possible only by the revival of an institution of naked tyranny foresworn for centu• ries in the Old" (Lacy, 1972, p. 22).

The Contact Situation

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The conditions under which groups first come into contact determine the immediate fate of the minority group and shape intergroup relations for years to come. We discussed the role of group competition in creating prejudice in Chapter 3. Here, I expand on some of these ideas by introducing two theories that will serve as analytical guides in understanding the contact situation.

Slaves were regarded as commodities to be bought and sold.

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152 PART 11 THE EVOLUTION OF DOMINANT-MINORITY RELATIONS IN THE UNITED STATES

The Noel Hypothesis

Sociologist Donald Noel (1968} identifies three features of the contact situation that in com- bination lead to some form of inequality between groups. The Noel hypothesis states: If two or more groups come together in a contact situation characterized by ethnocentrism, com- petition, and a differential in power, then some form of racial or ethnic stratification will result (p. 163; italics added}. If the contact situation has all three characteristics, some dominant-minority group structure will be created.

Noel's first characteristic, ethnocentrism, is the tendency to judge other groups, societies, or lifestyles by the standards of one's own culture. Ethnocentrism is probably a universal compo- nent of human society, and some degree of ethnocentrism is essential to the maintenance of social solidarity and cohesion. Without some minimal level of pride in and loyalty to one's own society and cultural traditions, there would be no particular reason to observe the norms and laws, honor the sacred symbols, or cooperate with others in doing the daily work of society.

ifSI Regardless of its importance, ethnocentrism can have negative consequences. At its worst, it M can lead to the view that other cultures and peoples are not just different, but inferior. At the very

Video Link 4.2 least, ethnocentrism creates a social boundary line that members of the groups involved will Frederick Douglass recognize and observe. When ethnocentrism exists in any degree, people will tend to sort them-

Exhibit 4.2 A Model of the Establishment of Minority Group Status

selves out along group lines and identify characteristics that differentiate "us" from "them." Competition is a struggle over a scarce commodity. As we saw in Chapter 3, competition

between groups often leads to harsh negative feelings (prejudice) and hostile actions (dis- crimination}. In competitive contact situations, the victorious group becomes the dominant group, and the losers become the minority group. The competition may center on land, labor, jobs, housing, educational opportunities, political office, or anything else that is mutu- ally desired by both groups or that one group has and the other group wants. Competition provides the eventual dominant group with the motivation to establish superiority. The dominant group serves its own interests by ending the competition and exploiting, control- ling, eliminating, or otherwise dominating the minority group.

The third feature of the contact situation is a differential in power between the groups. Power, as you recall from Chapter 1, is the ability of a group to achieve its goals even in the face of opposition from other groups. The amount of power commanded by a group is a function of three factors. First, the size of the group can make a difference, and all other things being equal, larger groups are more powerful. Second, in addition to raw numbers, the degree of organization, discipline, and the quality of group leadership can make a differ- ence in the ability of a group to pursue its goals. A third component of power is resources: anything that can be used to help the group achieve its goals. Depending on the context, resources might include anything from land to information to money. The greater the num- ber and variety of resources at the disposal of a group, the greater that group's potential ability to dominate other groups. Thus, a larger, better-organized group with more resources at its disposal will generally be able to impose its will on smaller, less-well-organized groups with fewer resources. The Noel hypothesis is diagrammed in Exhibit 4.2.

Characteristics of Contact Situation

Ethnocentrism

Competition

Differential in power

Result

----- Group boundaries established (who to dominate) }

Motivation to establish Ethnic or racial ----- superiority (why dominate) stratification

_____ Dominant group imposes its will on minority group (how to dominate)

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Chapter 4 The Development of Dominant-Minority Group Relations in Preindustrial America

Note the respective functions of each of the three factors in shaping the contact situation and the emergence of inequality. If ethnocentrism is present, the groups will recognize their differences and maintain their boundaries. If competition is also present, the group that eventually dominates will attempt to maximize its share of scarce commodities by control- ling or subordinating the group that eventually becomes the "minority" group. The differ- ential in power allows the dominant group to succeed in establishing a superior position. Ethnocentrism tells the dominant group whom to dominate, competition tells the dominant group why it should establish a structure of dominance, and power is how the dominant group's will is imposed on the minority group.

The Noel hypothesis can be applied to the creation of minority groups in a variety of situa- tions. We will also use the model to analyze changes in dominant-minority structures over time.

The Blauner Hypothesis

The contact situation also has been analyzed by sociologist Robert Blauner (1972}, in his book Racial Oppression in America. Blauner identifies two different initial relationships- colonization and immigration-and hypothesizes that minority groups created by coloniza- tion will experience more intense prejudice, racism, and discrimination than those created by immigration. Furthermore, the disadvantaged status of colonized groups will persist longer and be more difficult to overcome than the disadvantaged status faced by groups cre- ated by immigration.

Colonized minority groups, such as African Americans, are forced into minority status by the superior military and political power of the dominant group. At the time of contact with the dominant group, colonized groups are subjected to massive inequalities and attacks on their cultures. They are assigned to positions, such as slave status, from which any form of assimilation is extremely difficult and perhaps even forbidden by the dominant group. Frequently, members of the minority group are identified by highly visible racial or physical characteristics that maintain and reinforce the oppressive system. Thus, minority groups created by colonization experience harsher and more persistent rejection and oppression than do groups created by immigration,

Immigrant minority groups are at least in part voluntary participants in the host society. That is, although the decision to immigrate may be motivated by extreme pressures, such as famine or political persecution, immigrant groups have at least some control over their des- tinations and their positions in the host society. As a result, they do not occupy positions that are as markedly inferior as those of colonized groups. They retain enough internal organization and resources to pursue their own self-interests, and they commonly experience more rapid acceptance and easier movement to equality. The boundaries between groups are not so rigidly maintained, especially when the groups are racially similar. In discussing European immigrant groups, for example, Blauner (1972) states that entering into American society

involved a degree of choice and self-direction that was for the most part denied to people of color. Voluntary immigration made it more likely that .. . European . . . ethnic groups would identify with America and see the host culture as a positive opportunity. (p. 56}

Acculturation and, particularly, integration were significantly more possible for European immigrant groups than for the groups formed under conquest or colonization,

Blauner stresses that the initial differences between colonized and immigrant minority groups have consequences that persist long after the original contact. For example, based on measures of equality-or integration into the secondary sector, the second step in Gordon's model of assimilation (see Chapter 2)-such as average income, years of education, and unemployment rate, descendants of European immigrants are equal with national norms

153

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Reference Link 4.1

Slavery in the US

Aud;oUnk?~ Reparations

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PART II THE EVOLUTION OF DOMINANT-MINORITY RELATIONS IN THE UN ITED STATES

today (see Chapter 2 for specific data). In contrast, descendants of colonized and conquered groups (e.g., African Americans) are, on the average, below the national norms on virtually all measures of equality and integration (see Chapters 6- 9 for specific data).

Blauner's two types of minority groups lie at opposite ends of a continuum, but there are intermediate positions between the extremes. Enclave and middleman minorities (see Chapter 2) often originate as immigrant groups who bring some resources and, thus, have more opportunities than colonized minority groups to carve out places for themselves in the host society. Unlike European groups, however, many of these minorities are also racially distinguishable, and certain kinds of opportunities may be closed to them. For instance, U.S. citizenship was expressly forbidden to immigrants from China until World War II. Federal laws restricted the entrance of Chinese immigrants, and state and local laws restricted their opportunities for education, jobs, and housing. For these and other reasons, the Asian immi- grant experience cannot be equated with European immigrant patterns (Blauner, 1972, p. 55). Because they combine characteristics of both the colonized and the immigrant minor- ity group experience, we can predict that in terms of equality, enclave and middleman minor- ity groups will occupy an intermediate status between the more assimilated white ethnic groups and the colonized racial minorities.

Blauner's typology has proved to be an extremely useful conceptual tool for the analysis of U.S. dominant-minority relations, and it is used extensively throughout this text. In fact, the case studies that compose Part III of this text are arranged in approximate order from groups created by colonization to those created by immigration. Of course, it is difficult to measure such things as the extent of colonization objectively or precisely, and the exact order of the groups is somewhat arbitrary.

The Creation of Slavery in the United States

The Noel hypothesis helps explain why colonists enslaved black Africans instead of white indentured servants or American Indians. First, all three groups were the objects of ethno- centric feelings on the part of the elite groups that dominated colonial society. Black Africans and American Indians were perceived as being different on religious as well as racial grounds. Many white indentured servants were Irish Catholics, criminals, or paupers. They not only occupied a lowly status in society but were perceived as different from the British Protestants who dominated colonial society.

Second, competition of some sort existed between the colonists and all three groups. The competition with American Indians was direct and focused on control of land. Competition with indentured servants, white and black, was more indirect; these groups were the labor force that the landowners needed to work on their plantations and become successful in the New World.

Noel's third variable, differential in power, is the key variable that explains why Africans were enslaved instead of the other groups. During the first several decades of colonial his- tory, the balance of power between the colonists and American Indians was relatively even and, in fact, often favored American Indians (Lurie, 1982, pp. 131-133). The colonists were outnumbered, and their muskets and cannons were only marginally more effective than bows and spears. The American Indian tribes were well-organized social units capable of sustaining resistance to and mounting reprisals against the colonists, and it took centuries for the nascent United States to finally defeat American Indians militarily.

White indentured servants, on the one hand, had the advanrage of being preferred over black indentured servants (Noel, 1968, p. 168). Their greater desirability gave them bargain· ing power and the ability to negotiate better treatment and more lenient terms than black indentured servants. If the planters had attempted to enslave white indentured servants, this source of labor would have dwindled evep. more rapidly.

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Chapter 4 The Development of Dominant-Minority Group Relations in Preindustrial America

Three C1us;:il F;:iclor~

l'olt>nli;:il Sour(l'S of L;:ihor Elhnoccnlrisrn Compelilion Difil'n•nli;il in 1'1l\\er

White indentured servants Yes Yes No

American Indians Yes Yes No

Black indentured servants Yes Yes Yes

Africans, on the other hand, had become indentured servants by force and coercion. In Blauner's terms, they were a colonized group that did not freely choose to enter the British colonies. Thus, they had no bargaining power. Unlike American Indians, they had no nearby relatives, no knowl- edge of the countryside, and no safe havens to which to escape. Exhibit 4.3 summarizes the impact of these three factors on the three potential sources of labor in colonial America.

Paternalistic Relations

Recall the first theme stared at the beginning of this chapter: The nature of intergroup rela- tionships will reflect the characteristics of the larger society. The most important and profit- able unit of economic production in the colonial South was the plantation, and the region was dominated by a small group of wealthy landowners. A society with a small elite class and a plantation-based economy will often develop a form of minority relations called pater- nalism (van den Berghe, 1967; Wilson, 1973). The key features of paternalism are vast power differentials and huge inequalities between dominant and minority groups, elaborate and repressive systems of control over the minority group, caste-like barriers between groups, elaborate and highly stylized codes of behavior and communication between groups, and low rates of overt conflict. Each of these characteristics will be considered in turn.

As slavery evolved in the colonies, the dominant group shaped the system to fit its needs. To solidify control of the labor of their slaves, the plantation elite designed and enacted an elaborate system of laws and customs that gave masters nearly total legal power over slaves. In these laws, slaves were defined as chattel, or personal property, rather than as persons, and they were accorded no civil or political rights. Slaves could not own property, sign con- tracts, bring lawsuits, or even testify in court (except against another slave). The masters were given the legal authority to determine almost every aspect of a slave's life, including work schedules, living arrangements, diets, and even names (Elkins, 1959; Franklin & Moss, 1994; Genovese, 1974; Jordan, 1968; Stampp, 1956).

The law permitted the master to determine the type and severity of punishment for mis- behavior. Slaves were forbidden by law to read or write, and marriages between slaves were not legally recognized. Masters could separate husbands from wives and parents from chil- dren if it suited them. Slaves had little formal decision-making ability or control over their lives or the lives of their loved ones.

In colonial America, slavery became synonymous with race. Race, slavery, inferiority, and powerlessness became intertwined in ways that, according to many analysts, still affect the ways black and white Americans think about one another (Hacker, 1992). Slavery was a caste system, or dosed stratification system. In a caste system, there is no mobility between social positions, and the social class you are born into (your ascribed status) is permanent. Slave status was for life and was passed on to any children a slave might have. Whites, no matter what they did, could not become slaves.

Interaction between members of the dominant and minority groups in a paternalistic system is governed by a rigid, strictly enforced code of etiquette. Slaves were expected to

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Exhibit 4.3 The Noel Hypothesis Applied to the Origins of Slavery

1)

2)

3)

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tS6

The prosperity of southern plantation owners was based on the labor of black slaves.

C Bcttmann/CORBIS.

PART 11 THE EVOLUTION OF DOMINANT-MINORITY RELATIONS IN THE UNITED STATES

show deference and humility and visibly display their lower status when interacting with whites. These rigid behavioral codes made it possible for blacks and whites to work together, sometimes intimately, sometimes for their entire lives, without threatening the power and status differentials inherent in the system. Plantation and farm work required close and fre· quent contact between blacks and whites, and status differentials were maintained socially rather than physically.

The frequent but unequal interactions allowed the elites to maintain a pseudotolerance, an attitude of benevolent despotism, toward their slaves. Their prejudice and racism were often expressed as positive emotions of affection for their black slaves. The attitude of the planters toward their slaves was often paternalistic and even genteel (Wilson, 1973, pp. 52-55).

For their part, black slaves often could not hate their owners as much as they hated the system that constrained them. The system defined slaves as pieces of property owned by their masters-yet they were, undeniably, human beings. Thus, slavery was founded, at its heart, on a contradiction.

The master learned to treat his slaves both as property and as men and women, the slaves learned to express and affirm their humanity even while they were constrained in much of their lives to accept their status as chattel. (Parish, 1989, p. 1)

The powerlessness of slaves made it difficult for them to openly reject or resist the system. Slaves had few ways in which they could directly challenge the institution of slavery or their position in it. Open. defiance was ineffective and could result in

4)

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Chapter 4 The Development of Dominant-Minority Group Relations in Preindustrial America

punishment or even death. In general, masters would not be prosecuted for physically abusing their slaves.

One of the few slave revolts that occurred in the United States illustrates both the futility of overt challenge and the degree of repression built into the system. In 1831, in Southampton County, Virginia, a slave named Nat Turner led an uprising during which 57 whites were killed. The revolt was starting to spread when the state militia met and routed the growing slave army. More than 100 slaves died in the armed encounter, and Nat Turner and 13 others were later executed. Slave owners and white southerners in general were greatly alarmed by the uprising and consequently tightened the system of control over slaves, making it even more repressive (Franklin & Moss, 1994, p. 147). Ironically, the result of Nat Turner's attempt to lead slaves to freedom was greater oppression and control by the dominant group.

Others were more successful in resisting the system. Runaway slaves were a constant problem for slave owners, especially in the states bordering the free states of the North. The difficulty of escape and the low likelihood of successfully reaching the North did not deter thousands from attempting the feat, some of them repeatedly. Many runaway slaves received help from the Underground Railroad, an informal network of safe houses supported by African Americans and whites involved in abolitionism, the movement to abolish slavery. These escapes created colorful legends and heroic figures, including Frederick Douglass, Sojourner Truth, and Harriet Tubman. The Narrative Portrait in this chapter presents the experiences of two ex-slaves who eventually escaped to the North.

Besides running away and open rebellion, slaves used the forms of resistance most readily available to them: sabotage, intentional carelessness, dragging their feet, and work slow- downs. As historian Peter Parish (1989) points out, it is difficult to separate "a natural desire to avoid hard work [from a] conscious decision to protest or resist" (p. 73), and much of this behavior may fall more into the category of noncooperation than of deliberate political rebellion. Nonetheless, these behaviors were widespread and document the rejection of the system by its victims.

On an everyday basis, the slaves managed their lives and families as best they could. Most slaves were neither docile victims nor unyielding rebels. As the institution of slavery developed, a distinct African American experience accumulated, and traditions of resistance and accommodation developed side by side. Most slaves worked to create a world for them- selves within the confines and restraints of the plantation system, avoiding the more vicious repression as much as possible while attending to their own needs and those of their families. An African American culture was forged in response to the realities of slavery and was manifested in folklore, music, religion, family and kinship structures, and other aspects of everyday life (Blassingame, 1972; Genovese, 1974; Gutman, 1976).

The Dimensions of Minority Group Status

The situation of African Americans under slavery can be more completely described by applying some of the concepts developed in Part I.

Power, Inequality, and Institutional Discrimination

The key concepts for understanding the creation of slavery are power, inequality, and insti- tutional discrimination. The plantation elite used its greater power resources to consign black Africans to an inferior status. The system of racial inequality was implemented and reinforced by institutionalized discrimination and became a central aspect of everyday life in the antebellum South. The legal and political institutions of colonial society were shaped to benefit the landowners and give chem almost total control over their slaves.

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Reference Link 4.2 Underground Railroad

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Exhibit 4.4 A Model for the Creation of Prejudice and Racism

PART II THE EVOLUTION OF DOMINANT-MINORITY RELATIONS IN THE UNITED STATES

Prejudice and Racism

What about the attitudes and feelings of the people involved? What was the role of personal prejudice? How and why did the ideology of antiblack racism start? As we discussed in Chapter 3, individual prejudice and ideological racism are not so important as causes of the creation of minority group status but are more the results of systems of racial inequality (Jordan, 1968, p. 80; Smedley, 2007, pp. 100-104). The colonists did nor enslave black indentured servants because they were prejudiced or because they disliked blacks or thought them inferior. The decision to enslave black Africans was an attempt to resolve a labor sup- ply problem. The primary roles of prejudice and racism in the creation of minority group status are to rationalize and "explain" the emerging system of racial and ethnic advantage (Wilson, 1973, pp. 76-78).

Prejudice and racism help mobilize support for the creation of minority group status and help stabilize the system as it emerges. Prejudice and racism can provide convenient and convincing justifications for exploitation. They can help insulate a system such as slavery from questioning and criticism and make it appear reasonable and even desirable. Thus, the intensity, strength, and popularity of antiblack southern racism actually reached its height almost 200 years after slavery began to emerge. During the early 1800s, the American abolitionist movement brought slavery under heavy attack, and in response, the ideology of antiblack racism was strengthened (Wilson, 1973, p. 79). The greater the opposition to a system of racial stratification or the greater the magnitude of the exploita- tion, the greater the need of the beneficiaries and their apologists to justify, rationalize, and explain.

Once created, dominant group prejudice and racism become widespread and common ways of thinking about the minority group. In the case of colonial slavery, antiblack beliefs and feelings became part of the standard package of knowledge, understanding, and truths shared by members of the dominant group. As the decades wore on and the institution of slavery solidified, prejudice and racism were passed on from generation to generation. For succeeding generations, antiblack prejudice became just another piece of information and perspective on the world learned during socialization. Antiblack prejudice and racism began as part of an attempt to control the labor of black indentured servants, became embedded in early American culture, and were established as integral parts of the socialization process for succeeding generations (see Myrdal's "vicious cycle" in Chapter 3).

These conceptual relationships are presented in Exhibit 4.4. Racial inequality arises from the contact situation, as specified in the Noel hypothesis. As the dominant-minority relation- ship begins to take shape, prejudice and racism develop as rationalizations. Over rime, a vicious cycle develops as prejudice and racism reinforce the pattern of inequality between groups, which was the cause of prejudice and racism in the first place. Thus, the Blauncr hypothesis states, the subordination of colonized minority groups is perpetuated through time.

Ethnocentrism }- Competition Differential in power .

Inequality and institutionalized discrimination

Prejudice and racism

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NARRATIVE PORTRAIT 1 A Slave's Life The memoirs of two escaped slaves, Henry Bibb and Harriet JaCCJbs, illustrate some of the features of southern slavery. Bibb was married and had a child when he escaped to the North, where he spent the rest of his life 'NOrking for the abolition of slavery. The passage printed here gives an overview of his early life and expresses his commitment to freedom and his family. He also describes some of the abuses he and his family suffered under the reign of a particularly cruel master. Bibb was unable to rescue his daughter from slavery and agonizes over leaving her in bondage.

Harriet Jacobs grew up as a slave m Edenton, North Carolina, and m this excerpt, she recounts some of her experiences, especially the sexual harassment she suffered at the hand of her master. Her narrative Illustrates the dynamics of power and sex in the "peculiar institu- tion" and the vel}' limited options she had for defending herself from the advances of her master. She eventually escaped from slavery by h1dmg in her grandmother's house for nearly 17 years and then making her way to the North.

NARRATIVE OF THE LIFE AND ADVENTURES OF HENRY BIBB HENRY BIBB

I was born May 1815, of a slave mother, in Shelby County, Kentucky, and was claimed as the property of David White. I was brought up ... or, more correctly speaking, I was flogged up; for where I should have received moral, mental, and religious instruction, I received stripes w.thout number, the object of which was to degrade and keep me in subordination .... The first time I was separated from my mother, I was young and small . . .. I was ... hired out to labor for various persons and all my wages were expended for the education of [my master's daughter). It was then I first commenced seeing and feeling that I was a wretched slave, compelled to work under the lash without wages, and -Often without clothes to hide my nakedness . • ..

All that I heard about liberty and freedom ... I never forgot. Among other good trades I learned the art of running away to perfection. I made a regular business of it, and never gave 1t up, until 1 had broken the bands of slavery, and landed myself safely in Canada, where I was regarded as a man, and not a thing.

[Bibb describes his chi dhood and adolescence, his early attempts to escape to the North, and his marriage to Malinda.] Not many months [later] Malinda made me a father. The dear httle daughter was called Mary Frances. She was nurtured and caressed by her mother and father . . . . Malinda's business was to labor out in the field the greater part of her time, and there was no one to take care of poor little Frances .... She was left at the house to creep under the feet of an unmerciful old mistress, Mrs. Gatewood (the owner's wife). I recollect that [we) came in from the field one day and poor little Frances came creeping to her mother smiling, but with large tear drops standing in her dear little eyes . . . . Her little face was bruised black with the whole print of Mrs. Gatewood's hand . . .. Who can imagine the feelings of a mother and father, when looking upon their infant child whipped and tortured with impunity, and they placed in a situation where they cou~d afford it no protection? But we were all claimed and held as property; the father and mother were slaves!

On this same plantation, I was compelled to stand and see my wife shamefully scourged and abused by her master; and the manner in which this was done was so violent and inhuman that I despair in finding decent language to describe the bloody act of cruelty. My happi· ness or pleasure was all blasted; for 1t was sometimes a pleasure to be with my little family even in slavery. I loved them as my wife and child. Little Frances was a pretty child; she was quiet, playful, bright, and interesting ... . But I could never look upon the dear child without being filled with sorrow and fearful apprehensions, of being separated by slaveholders, because she was a stave, regarded as property ... . But Oh! When I remember that my daughter, my only child, is still there, . .. it is too much to bear. If ever there was any one act of my life as a slave, that I have to lament over, 1t is that of being a father and a husband to slaves. I have the satisfaction of knowing that I am the father of only one slave. She is bone of my bone, and flesh of my flesh; poor unfortunate child. She was the first and shall be the last slave that ever I will father, for chains and slavery on this earth.

Osofsky (1969, pp. 54-65, 80-81).

LIFE AS A SLAVE GIRL HARRIET JACOBS

During the first years of my service in Dr. Flint's family, I was accustomed to share some indulgences with the children of my mistress. Though this seemed to me no more than right, I was grateful for it, and tried to merit the kindness by the faithful discharge of my duties. But I now entered on my fifteenth year-a sad epoch in the life of a slave girl. My master began to whisper foul words in my ear. Young as I was, I could not remain ignorant of their import. I tried to treat them with indifference or contempt. The master's age, my extreme youth, and the fear that misconduct would be reported to my grandmother made me bear this treatment for many months.

He was a crafty man, and resorted to many means to accomplish his purposes. Sometimes he had stormy, terrific wa'fS, that made his victims tremble; sometimes he assumed a genHeness that he 111ought must surely subdue. Of the IY.u, I preferred his stormy mcxxjs, although they left me trembling. He tried his utmost to cooupt the pure principles my grandmother had instilled. He peopled my young mind with unclean images, such as only a vile monster could think of. I turned from him with disgust and hatred. But he was my master. I was compelled to live under the same roci with him, where I saH a man forty years my senior daily violating the most sacred commandments of nature. He told me I was his property; that I must be subject to his will in all things. My soul revolted against the mean lyranny. But where could I tum for protection? No matter whether the slave girl be as black as el:x>ny or as fair as her mistress. In either case, there is no shado.v of law to protect her from insult, from violence, or even from death; all these are inflicted l:rj fiends who bear the shape of men. The mistress, who ought to prolEct the helpless victim, has no other feelings towards her but those of jealousy and rage. The degradation, the wrongs, the vices that grrN1 out of slavery, are more than I can describe. They are greater than you 'MJUld wilHngly believe. Surely, if you credited on half the truths that are told you concerning the helpless millions suffering in this cruel bondage, you at the north 'NOi.iid not help tighten the yoke. You surely 'Mltlld refuse to do for the master, on your own soil, the mean and cruel v.u.'k which trained blcxxlhounds and the bNest class of whiles do for him at lhe south.

"The Trials of Girlhood,• reprinted by permission of the publishers from Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl: Written by Herself by Harriet A. Jacobs, edited and with an Introduction by Jean Fagan Yellin, pp. 27- 30, Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, Copyright @ 1987, 2000 by the President and

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160

L!J Journal link 4.2

Slavery and Emancipation in New York City

PART II THE EVOLUTION OF DOMINANT-MINORITY RELATIONS INTHE UNITED STATES

Assimilation

There is an enormous literature on American slavery, and research on the nature and meaning of the system continues to this day. Many issues remain unsettled, however, and one of the more controversial, consequential, and interesting of these concerns the effect of slavery on the slaves.

Apologists for the system of slavery and some historians of the South writing early in the 20th century accepted the rationalizations inherent in antiblack prejudice and argued that slavery was actually beneficial for black Africans. According to this view, British-American slavery operated as a "school for civilization" (Phillips, 1918) that rescued savages from the jungles of Africa and exposed them to Christianity and Western civilization. Some argued that slavery was benevolent because it protected slaves from the evils and exploitation of the factory system of the industrial North. These racist views were most popular a century ago, early in the development of the social sciences. Since that time, scholars have established a number of facts (e.g., Western Africa, the area from which most slaves came, had been the site of a number of powerful, advanced civiliza- tions) that make this view untenable by anyone but the most dedicated racist thinkers.

At the opposite extreme, slavery has been compared to Nazi concentration camps and likened to a "perverted patriarchy" that brainwashed, emasculated, and dehumanized slaves, stripping them of their heritage and culture. Historian Stanley Elkins (1959) pro- vocatively argued this interpretation, now widely regarded as overstated, in his book Slavery: A Problem in American Institutional and Intellectual Life. Although his conclusions might be overdrawn, Elkins's argument and evidence are important for any exploration of the nature of American slavery. In fact, much of the scholarship on slavery since the publica- tion of Elkins's book has been an attempt to refute or at least modify the points he made.

Still a third view of the impact of slavery maintains that through all the horror and abuse of enslavement, slaves retained a sense of self and a firm anchor in their African traditions. This point of view stresses the importance of kinship, religion, and culture in helping African Americans cope and has been presented most poignantly in Alex Haley's (1976) semific- tional family history, Roots, but it is also represented in the scholarly literature on slavery since Elkins (see Blassingame, 1972; Genovese, 1974).

The debate over the impact of slavery continues (see the "Current Debates" section at the end of this chapter), and we cannot hope to resolve the issues here. However, it is clear that African Americans, in Blauner's terms, were a "colonized" minority group who were exten- sively-and coercively-acculturated. Language acculturation began on the slave ships, where different tribal and language groups were mixed together to inhibit communication and lower the potential for resistance and revolt (Mannix, 1962).

The plantation elite and their agents needed to communicate with their workforce and insisted on using English. Within a generation or two, African language use died out. Some scholars argue that some African words and language patterns persist to the present day, bur even if this is true, the significance of this survival is trivial compared with the coerced adop- tion of English. To the extent char culture depends on language, Africans under slavery experienced massive acculturation.

Acculturation through slavery was clearly a process that was forced on African Americans. Because they were a colonized minority group and unwilling participants in the system, they had little choice but to adjust to the conditions established by the plantation elite as best they could. Their traditional culture was suppressed, and their choices for adjustment to the sys- tem were sharply constrained. Black slaves developed new cultural forms and social relation- ships, bur they did so in a situation with few options or choices (Blauner, 1972, p. 66). The extent to which any African cultural elements survived the institution of slavery is a matter of some controversy, but given the power differentials inherent in the system, African Americans had few choices regarding their manner of adjustment.

Gender Relations

Southern agrarian society developed into a complex social system stratified by race and gender as well as by class. The plantation elite, small in number but wealthy and politically

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Chapter 4 The Development of Dominant-M inority Group Relations in Preindustrial America

powerful, was at the top of the structure. Most whites in the South were small farmers, and relatively few of them owned slaves. In 1860, for example, only 25% of all southern whites owned slaves (Franklin & Moss, 1994, p. 123).

The principal line of differentiation in the antebellum South was, of course, race, which was largely synonymous with slave versus nonslave status. Each of the racial groups was, in turn, stratified by gender. White women were subordinate to the males of the planration elite, and the slave community echoed the patriarchal pattern of southern society, except that the degree of gender inequality among blacks was sharply truncated by the fact that slaves had little autonomy and few resources. At the bottom of the system were African American female slaves. Minority women are generally in double jeopardy, oppressed through their gender as well as their race. For black female slaves, the constraints were triple: "Black in a white society, slave in a free society, women in a society ruled by men, female slaves had the least formal power and were perhaps the most vulnerable group of antebellum America" (White, 1985, p. 15).

The race and gender roles of the day idealized southern white women and placed them on a pedestal. A romanticized conception of femininity was quite inconsistent with the roles women slaves were required to play. Besides domestic roles, female slaves also worked in the fields and did their share of the hardest, most physically demanding, least "feminine" farm work. Southern ideas about feminine fragility and daintiness were quickly abandoned when they interfered with work and the profit to be made from slave labor (Amott & Matthaei, 1991, p. 146).

Reflecting their vulnerability and powerlessness, women slaves were sometimes used to breed more slaves to sell. They were raped and otherwise abused by the males of the domi- nant group. John Blassingame (1972) expressed their vulnerability to sexual victimization:

Many white men considered every slave cabin a house of ill-fame. Often through "gifts" but usually by force, white overseers and planters obtained the sexual favors of black women. Generally speaking, the women were literally forced to offer themselves "willingly" and receive a trinket for their compliance rather than a flogging for their refusal. (p. 83)

Note the power relationships implicit in this passage: Female slaves had little choice but to feign willing submission to their white owners.

The routines of work and everyday life differed for male and female slaves. Although they sometimes worked with the men, especially during harvest time, women more often worked 0

161

in sex-segregated groups organized around domestic as well as farm chores. In addition to Audio link 4.3 working in the fields, they attended the births and cared for the children of both races, Women and Slavery cooked and deaned, wove cloth and sewed clothes, and did the laundry. The women often worked longer hours than the men, doing housework and other chores long after the men retired (Robertson, 1996, p. 21; White, 1985, p. 122).

The group-oriented nature of their tasks gave female slaves an opportunity to develop same-sex bonds and relationships. Women cooperated in their chores, in caring for their children, in the maintenance of their quarters, and in myriad other domestic and family chores. These networks and interpersonal bonds could be used to resist the system. For example, slave women sometimes induced abortions rather than bring more children into bondage. They often controlled the role of midwife and were able to effectively deceive slave owners and disguise the abortions as miscarriages (White, 1985, pp. 125-126). The net- works of relationships among the female slaves provided mutual aid and support for every- day problems, solace and companionship during the travails of a vulnerable and exploited existence, and some ability to buffer and resist the influence and power of the slave owners (Andersen, 1993, pp. 164-165).

Slaves in the American system were brutally repressed an~ exploited, but females were even more subordinated than males. Also, their oppression and exclusion sharply differentiated female slaves from white females. The white "Southern Belle"--chaste, untouchable, and unremittingly virtuous-had little in common with African American women under slavery.

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162 PART II THE EVOLUTION OF DOMINANT-MINORITY RELATIONS INTHE UNITED STATES

THE CREATION OF MINORITY STATUS FOR AMERICAN INDIANS AND MEXICAN AMERICANS

~-~ CQ Researcher Link 4.1

Indigenous Peoples

Most American Indians lived in small bands and relied on hunting and gardening for their subsistence.

From Ubrary of Congress.

Two other groups became minorities during the preindustrial period. In this section, we will review the dynamics of these processes and make some comparisons with African Americans. As you will see, both the Noel and Blauner hypotheses provide some extremely useful insights into these experiences.

American Indians

As Europeans began to penetrate the New World, they encountered hundreds of societies that had lived on this land for thousands of years. American Indian societies were highly variable in culture, language, size, and subsistence technology. Some were small, nomadic hunter-gatherer bands, whereas others were more developed societies in which people lived

in settled villages and tended large gardens. -;Ji'l.ITZ'{:1f.'P" Regardless of their exact nature, the inexo-

rable advance of white society eventually devastated them all. Contact began in the East and established a pattern of conflict and defeat for American Indians that con- tinued until the last of the tribes were finally defeated in the late 1800s. The con- tinual expansion of white society into the West allowed many settlers to fulfill their dreams of economic self-sufficiency, but American Indians, who lost not only their lives and their land but also much of their traditional way of life, paid an incalculable pnce.

An important and widely unrecognized point about American Indians is that there is no such thing as the American Indian. Rather, there were-and are-hundreds of different tribes or nations, each with its own language, culture, home territory, and unique history. There are, of course, simi-

larities from tribe to tribe, but there are also vast differences between, for example, the forest- dwelling tribes of Virginia, who lived in longhouses and cultivated gardens, and the nomadic Plains tribes, who relied on hunting to satisfy their needs. Each tribe was and remains a unique blend of language, values, and social structure. Because of space constraints, we will not always be able to take all these differences into account. Nonetheless, it is important to be aware of the diversity and sensitive to the variety of peoples and histories subsumed within the general category of American Indian.

A second important point is that many American Indian tribes no longer exist or are vastly diminished in size. When Jamestown was established in 1607, it is estimated that there were anywhere from 1 million to more than 10 million American Indians living in what became the United States. By 1890, when the Indian Wars finally ended, the number of American Indians had fallen to fewer than 250,000. By the end of the nearly 300-year-long "contact situation," American Indian populations had declined by 75% or more (Wax, 1971, p. 17; see also McNickle, 1973 ).

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Chapter 4 The Development of Dominant-Minority Group Relations in Preindustrial America

Very little of this population loss was due direcrly to warfare and battle casualties. The greatest part was caused by European diseases brought over by the colonists and by the destruction of the food supplies on which American Indian societies relied. American Indians died by the thousands from measles, influenza, smallpox, cholera, tuberculosis, and a variety of other infectious diseases (Wax, 1971, p. 17; see also Oswalt & Neely, 1996; Snipp, 1989). Traditional hunting grounds and garden plots were taken over by the expanding American society, and game such as the buffalo was slaughtered to the point of extinction. The result of the contact situation for American Indians very nearly approached genocide.

American Indians and the Noel and Blauner Hypotheses

We have already used the Noel hypothesis to analyze why American Indians were not enslaved during the colonial era. Their competition with whites centered on land, not labor, and the Indian nations were often successful in resisting domination (at least temporarily). As American society spread to the West, competition over land continued, and the growing power, superior technology, and greater resource base of the dominant group gradually pushed American Indians to near extinction.

Various attempts were made to control the persistent warfare, the most important of which occurred before independence from Great Britain. In 1763, the British Crown ruled that the various tribes were to be considered "sovereign nations with inalienable rights to their land" (see Lurie, 1982; McNickle, 1973; Wax, 1971). In other words, each tribe was to be treated as a nation-state, like France or Russia, and the colonists could not simply expropriate tribal lands. Rather, negotiations had to take place, and treaties of agreement had to be signed by all affected parties. The tribes had to be compensated for any loss of land.

This policy was often ignored but was continued by the newborn federal government after the American Revolution. The principle of sovereignty is important because it estab- lished a unique relationship between the federal government and American Indians. The fact that white society ignored the policy and regularly broke the treaties gives American Indians legal claims against the federal government that are also unique.

East of the Mississippi River, the period of open conflict was brought to a close by the Indian Removal Act of 1830, which dictated a policy of forced emigration to the tribes. The law required all eastern tribes to move to new lands west of the Mississippi. Some of the affected tribes went without resistance, others fought, and still others fled to Canada rather than move to the new territory. Regardless, the Indian Removal Act .. solved" the Indian problem in the East. The relative scarcity of American Indians in the eastern United States continues to the present, and the majority of American Indians live in the western two thirds of the nation.

In the West, the grim story of competition for land, accompanied by rising hostility and aggression, repeated itself. Wars were fought, buffalo were killed, territory was expropri- ated, atrocities were committed on both sides, and the fate of the tribes became more and more certain. By 1890, the greater power and resources of white society had defeated the Indian nations. All the great warrior chiefs were dead or in prison, and almost all American Indians were living on reservations controlled by agencies of the federal government. The reservations consisted of land set aside for the tribes by the government during treaty nego- tiations. Often, these lands were not the traditional homelands and were hundreds or even thousands of miles away from what the tribe considered to be .. home." It is not surprising that the reservations were usually on undesirable, often worthless land.

The 1890s mark a low point in American Indian history, a time of great demoralization and sadness. The tribes had to find a way to adapt to reservation life and new forms of subordination

163

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164 PART 11 THE EVOLUTION OF DOMINANT-MINORITY RELATIONS IN THE UNITED STATES

to the federal government. Although elements of the tribal way of life have survived, the tribes were impoverished and without resources and had little ability to pursue their own interests.

American Indians, in Blauner's terms, were a colonized minority group who faced high levels of prejudice, racism, and discrimination. Like African Americans, they were controlled by paternalistic systems (the reservations) and in a variety of ways were coercively accultur- ated. Furthermore, according to Blauner, the negative consequences of colonized minority group status will persist long after the contact situation has been resolved. As we will see in Chapter 8, there is a great deal of evidence to support this prediction.

Gender Relations

In the centuries before contact with Europeans, American Indian soc1et1es distributed resources and power in a wide variety of ways. At one extreme, some American Indian soci- eties were highly stratified, and many practiced various forms of slavery. Others stressed equality, sharing of resources, and respect for the autonomy and dignity of each individual, including women and children (Amott & Matthaei, 1991, p. 33). American Indian societies were generally patriarchal and followed a strict gender-based division of labor, but this did not necessarily mean that women were subordinate. In many tribes, women held positions of great responsibility and controlled the wealth. For example, among the Iroquois (a large and powerful federation of tribes located in the Northeast), women controlled the land and the harvest, arranged marriages, supervised the children, and were responsible for the appointment of tribal leaders and decisions about peace and war (Oswalt & Neely, 1996, pp. 404-405). It was not unusual for women in many tribes to play key roles in religion, politics, warfare, and the economy. Some women even became highly respected warriors and chiefs (Amott & Matthaei, 1991, p. 36).

Gender relations were affected in a variety of ways during the prolonged contact period. In some cases, the relative status and power of women rose. For example, the women of the Navajo tribe (located mainly in what is now Arizona and New Mexico) were traditionally responsible for the care of herd animals and livestock. When the Spanish introduced sheep and goats into the region, the importance of this sector of the subsistence economy increased, and the power and status of women grew along with it.

In other cases, women were affected adversely. The women of the Great Plains tribes, for example, suffered a dramatic loss as a result of contact. The sexual division of labor in these tribes was that women were responsible for gardening, whereas men handled the hunting. When horses were introduced from Europe, the productivity of the male hunters was greatly increased. As their economic importance increased, males became more dominant and women lost status and power. Women in the Cherokee nation- a large tribe whose original homelands were in the Southeast- similarly lost considerable status and power under the pressure to assimilate. Traditionally, Cherokee land was cultivated, controlled, and passed down from generation to generation by the women. This matrilineal pattern was abandoned in favor of the European pattern of male ownership when the Cherokee attempted (futilely, as it turned out) to acculturate and avoid relocation under the Indian Removal Act of 1830 (Evans, 1989, pp. 12- 18).

Summary

By the end of the contact period, the surviving American Indian tribes were impoverished, powerless, and clearly subordinate to white society and the federal government. Like African Americans, American Indians were sharply differentiated from the dominant group by race, and, in many cases, the tribes were inter!lally stratified by gender. As was the case with African American slaves, the degree of gender inequality within the tribes was limited by their overall lack of autonomy and resources.

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Iii V'ldeo Link 4.3 Hawaiians as

an Indian Tribe?

Hawaii

In 1788, while American Indians and whites conbnued their centuries-long struggle, white Europeans first made contact w.th the indigenous people of Hawaii. The contact situation and the system of group relations that evolved on the island nation provide an interesting and instructive contrast with the history of American Indians.

In Hawaii, contact was not immediately followed by conquest and coloni- zation. Early relations between Europeans and Hawaiians were organized around trade and commerce, not competition over the control of land or labor. Also, Hawaiian society was large and highly developed, and it had sufficient military strength to protect itself from the relatively few Europeans who came to the islands in the early days. Thus, two of the three cond lions stated in the Noel hypothesis for the emergence of a dominant-minority situ- ation were not present in the early days of European-Hawaiian contact and, consistent with the hypothesis, overt structures of conquest or dominance did not emerge until decades after first contact.

Contact with Europeans did bring other consequences, of course, includ- ing smallpox and other diseases to which native Hawaiians had no immunity. Death rates began to rise, and the population of native Hawaiians, which numbered about 300,000 in 1788, fell to fewer than 60,000 a century later (Kitano & Daniels, 1995, p. 137). White Europeans gradually turned the land to commercial agriculture, and by the mid-1800s, white planters had estab- lished large sugar plantations, an enterprise that is extremely labor-intensive and that often has been associated with systems of enforced labor and slavery (Curtin, 1990). By that time, however, there were not enough native Hawaiians to fill the demand for labor, and the planters began to recruit abroad, mostly in China, Portugal, Japan, Korea, Puerto Rico, and the Philippines. Native Hawaiians continued to shrink in numbers and were gradually pushed off their land and to the margins of the emerging society.

The white plantation owners came to dominate the island economy and political structure. Other groups, however, were not excluded from secondary structural assimilation. laws banning entire groups from publlC institutions or practices such as school segregation are unknown in Hawaiian history. Americans of Japanese ancestry, for example, are very powerful in poli· tics and have produced many of the leading Hawaiian politicians. Most other groups have taken advan- tage of the relative openness of Hawaiian society and have carved out niches for themselves in the institutional structure.

In the area of primary structural assimilation, rates of intermarriage among the various groups are much higher than on the mainland, reflecting openness to intimacy across group Imes that has char- acterized Hawaii since first contact. In particular, Native Hawaiians have intermarried freely with other groups (Kitano & Daniels, 1995, pp. 138-139).

A male dancer prepares for the Hula. Many elements of traditional Hawaiian culture survived the contact period.

C Richard A. Cooke/Corbls.

Unlike the mainland society, Hawaii has no history of the most blatant and oppressive forms of group domination, racism, and legalized discrimination. Still, all is not perfect in this reputed racial paradise, and there is evidence of con- tinuing ethnic and racial stratification, as well as prejudice and discrimination. In particular, Native Hawaiians today retain their minority group status. The group 1s quite small and numbers about 150,000, an increase from the historic tows of the 19th century but still only about 12% of the state's population and a tiny minority of the U.S. population.

On the other hand, Native Hawa·1ans compare favorably with· both American Indians and black Americans m terms of education, income, and poverty (see Exhibit 4.6). This relatively higher status today is consistent with both the Noel

and Blauner hypotheses: They were not subjected to the harsh conditions (slavery, segregation, near genocide, and mas· sive institutional discrimination) of the other two groups. Although they compare favorably with the two colonized and conquered groups, Native Hawaiians tend to be the poorest of the various ethnic and racial groups on the island, and a protest movement of Native Hawaiians that stresses self-determination and the return of illegally taken land has been in existence since at least the 1960s.

Exhibit 4.5 Map of the Hawaiian Islands

Exhibit 4.6 Native Hawaiians Compared With Total Population, Black Americans, and American Indians, 2009

4'KAUAI

N rth Pa ific Ocean

Total U.S. Indicator Population

Percentage high school J[ 84.9 graduate or more - - Percentage college 27.8 graduate or more

Median household income $51,369 - Percentage of families m 9.9 poverty

SOURCE U.S. Bureau of the Census (2009a).

OAHU MOLOKAI --'C ~MAUI LANAI W'

HAWAII

Native Black Hawaiians Americans

J~ 89.3 85.3 16.2 24.4

$60,164 $39,447

9.9 20.4

NOTE: Black Americans and Native Americans are MAione and in Combination.•

Native Americans

80.6

16.0

$38,411

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Chapter 4 The Development of Dominant-Minority Group Relations in Preindustrial America

Mexican Americans

As the population of the United States increased and spread across the continent, contact with Mexicans inevitably occurred. Spanish explorers and settlers had lived in what is now the southwestern United States long before the wave of American settlers broke across this region. For example, Santa Fe, New Mexico, was founded in 1598, nearly a decade before Jamestown. As late as the 1820s, Mexicans and American Indians were almost the sole residents of the region.

In the early 1800s, four areas of Mexican setclement had developed, roughly corresponding to what was to become Texas, California, New Mexico, and Arizona. These areas were sparsely setcled, and most Mexicans lived in what was to become New Mexico (Cortes, 1980, p. 701). The economy of the regions was based on farming and herding. Most people lived in villages and small towns or on ranches and farms. Social and political life was organized around family and the Catholic Church and tended to be dominated by an elite class of wealthy landowners.

Texas

Some of the first effects of U.S. expansion to the West were felt in Texas early in the 1800s. Mexico was no military match for its neighbor to the north, and the farmland of East Texas was a tempting resource for the cotton-growing interests in the American South. Anglo- Americans began to immigrate to Texas in sizable numbers in the 1820s, and by 1835, they outnumbered Mexicans 6 to 1. The attempts by the Mexican government to control these immigrants were clumsy and ineffective and eventually precipitated a successful revolution by the Anglo-Americans, with some Mexicans also joining the rebels. At this point in time, competition between Anglos and Texans of Mexican descent (called Tejanos) was muted by the abundance of land and opportunity in the area. Population density was low, fertile land was readily available for all, and the "general tone of the time was that of intercultural cooperation" (Alvarez, 1973, p. 922).

Competition between Anglo-Texans and Tejanos became increasingly intense. When the United States annexed Texas in the 1840s, full-scale war broke out and Mexico was defeated. Under the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo in 1848, Mexico ceded much of the Southwest to the United States. In the Gadsden Purchase of 1853, the United States acquired the remainder of the territory that now composes the southwestern United States. As a result of these treaties, the Mexican population of this region had become, without moving an inch from their traditional villages and farms, both a conquered people and a minority group.

Following the war, intergroup relations continued to sour, and the political and legal rights of the Tejano community were often ignored in the hunger for land. Increasingly impoverished and powerless, the Tejanos had few resources with which to resist the growth of Anglo-American domination. They were badly outnumbered and stigmatized by the recent Mexican military defeat. Land that had once been Mexica'n increasingly came under Anglo control, and widespread violence and lynching reinforced the growth of Anglo domi- nance (Moquin & Van Doren, 1971, p. 253).

California

In California, the Gold Rush of 1849 spurred a massive population movement from the East. Early relations between Anglos and Californios (native Mexicans in the state) had been

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Mexican labor has been vital for the development of the Southwest.

From Library o( Congress.

168 PART II THE EVOLUTION OF DOMINANT-MINORITY RELATIONS IN THE UNITED STATES

relatively cordial, forming the basis for a multiethnic, bilingual state. The rapid growth of an Anglo majority after statehood in 1850 doomed these efforts, however, and the Californios, like the Tejanos, lost their land and political power.

Laws were passed encouraging Anglos to settle on land traditionally held by Californios. In such situations, the burden was placed on the Mexican American landowners to show that their deeds were valid. The Californios protested the seizure of their land but found it difficult to argue their cases in the English-speaking, Anglo-controlled court system. By the mid-1850s, a massive transfer of land to Anglo-American hands had taken place in California (Mirande, 1985, pp. 20-21; see also Pitt, 1970).

Other laws passed in the 1850s made it increasingly difficult for Californios to retain their property and power as Anglo-Americans became the dominant group as well as the majority of the population. The area's Mexican heritage was suppressed and eliminated from public life and institutions such as schools and local government. For example, in 1855, California repealed a requirement in the state constitution that all laws be published in Spanish as well as English (Cortes, 1980, p. 706). Anglo-Americans used violence, biased laws, discrimina- tion, and other means to exploit and repress Californios, and the new wealth generated by gold mining flowed into Anglo hands.

Arizona and New Mexico

The Anglo immigration into Arizona and New Mexico was less voluminous than that into Texas and California, and both states retained Mexican numerical majorities for a number of decades. In Arizona, most of the Mexican population were immigrants themselves, seeking work on farms, on ranches, in the mines, and on railroads. The economic and political structures of the state quickly came under the control of the Anglo population.

Only in New Mexico did Mexican Americans retain some political power and economic clout, mostly because of the relatively large size of the group and their skill in mobilizing for political activity. New Mexico did not become a state until 1912, and Mexican Americans continued to play a prominent role in governmental affairs even after statehood (Cortes, 1980, p. 706).

Thus, the contact situation for Mexican Americans was highly variable by region. Although some areas were affected more rapidly and more completely than others, the ultimate result was the creation of minority group status for Mexican Americans (Acuna, 1999; Alvarez, 1973; Mclemore, 1973; McWilliams, 1961; Moore, 1970; Stoddard, 1973).

Mexican Americans and the Noel and Blauner Hypotheses

The causal model we have applied to the origins of slavery and the domination of American Indians also provides a way of explaining the development of minority group status for Mexican Americans. Ethnocentrism was clearly present from the very first contact between Anglo immigrants and Mexicans. Many American migrants to the Southwest brought with them the prejudices and racism they had acquired with regard to African Americans and American Indians. In fact, many of the settlers who moved into Texas came directly from the South in search of new lands for the cultivation of cotton. They readily transferred their prejudiced views to at least the poorer Mexicans, who were stereotyped as lazy and shiftless (Mclemore, 1973, p. 664). The visibility of group boundaries was heightened and rein- forced by physical and religious differences. Mexicans were "racially" a mixture of Spaniards and American Indians, and the differences in skin color and other physical characteristics provided a convenient marker of group _membership. In addition, the vast majority of

Chapter 4 The Development of Dominant-Minority Group Relations in Preindustrial America

Mexicans were Roman Catholic, whereas the vast majority of Anglo-Americans were Protestant.

Competition for land began with the first contact between the groups. However, for many years, population density was low in the Southwest, and the competition did not immedi- ately or always erupt into violent domination and expropriation. Nonetheless, the loss of land and power for Mexican Americans was inexorable, although variable in speed.

The size of the power differential between the groups was variable and partly explains why domination was established faster in some places than others. In both Texas and California, the subordination of the Mexican American population followed quickly after a rapid influx of Anglos and the military defeat of Mexico. Anglo-Americans used their supe- rior numbers and military power to acquire control of the political and economic structures and expropriate the resources of the Mexican American community. In New Mexico, the groups were more evenly matched in size, and Mexican Americans were able to retain a measure of power for decades.

Unlike the case of American Indians, however, the labor as well as the land of the Mexicans was coveted. On cotton plantations, ranches, and farms, and in mining and railroad construction, Mexican Americans became a vital source of inexpensive labor. During times of high demand, this labor force was supplemented by workers who were encouraged to emigrate from Mexico. When demand for workers decreased, these laborers were forced back to Mexico. Thus began a pattern of labor flow that continues to the present.

As in the case of African Americans and American Indians, the contact period clearly established a colonized status for Mexican Americans in all areas of the Southwest. Their culture and language were suppressed even as their property rights were abrogated and their status lowered. In countless ways, they, too, were subjected to coercive acculturation. For example, California banned the use of Spanish in public schools, and bullfighting and other Mexican sports and recreational activities were severely restricted (Moore, 1970, p. 19; Pitt, 1970). In contrast to African Americans, however, Mexican Americans were in close prox- imity to their homeland and maintained dose ties with villages and families. Constant move- ment across the border with Mexico kept the Spanish language and much of the Mexican heritage alive in the Southwest. Nonetheless, 19th-century Mexican Americans fit Blauner's category of a colonized minority group, and the suppression of their culture was part of the process by which the dominant culture was established.

Anglo-American economic interests benefited enormously from the conquest of the Southwest and the colonization of the Mexican people. Growers and other business- men came to rely on the cheap labor provided by Mexican Americans and immigrant and day laborers from Mexico. The region grew in affluence and productivity, but Mexican Americans were now outsiders in their own land and did not share in the prosperity. In the land grab of the 1800s and the conquest of the indigenous Mexican population lies one of the roots of Mexican American relations with the dominant U.S. society today.

Gender Relations

Prior to the arrival of Anglo-Americans, Mexican society in the Southwest was patriarchal and maintained a clear gender-based division of labor. These characteristics tended to persist after the conquest and the creation of minority group status.

Most Mexican Americans lived in small villages or on large ranches and farms. The women devoted their energies to the family, child rearing, and household tasks. As Mexican Americans were reduced to a landless labor force, women along with men suf- fered the economic devastation that accompanied military conquest by a foreign power.

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170 PART 11 THE EVOLUTION OF DOMINANT-MINORITY RELATIONS IN THE UNITED STATES

The kinds of jobs available to the men {mining, seasonal farm work, railroad construc- tion) often required them to be away from home for extended periods of time, and women, by default, began to take over the economic and other tasks traditionally per- formed by males.

Poverty and economic insecurity placed the family structures under considerable strain. Traditional cultural understandings about male dominance and patriarchy became moot when the men were absent for long periods of time and the decision-making power of Mexican American women increased. Also, women were often forced to work outside the household for the family to survive economically. The economics of conquest led to increased matriarchy and more working mothers {Becerra, 1988, p. 149).

For Mexican American women, the consequences of contact were variable even though the ultimate result was a loss of status within the context of the conquest and colonization of the group as a whole. Like black female slaves, Mexican American women became the most vulnerable part of the social system.

COMPARING MINORITY GROUPS

American Indians and black slaves were the victims of the explosive growth of European power in the Western Hemisphere that began with Columbus's voyage in 1492. Europeans needed labor to fuel the plantations of the mid-17th-century American colonies and settled on slaves from Africa as the most logical, cost-effective means of resolving their labor supply problems. Black Africans had a commodity the colonists coveted (labor), and the colonists subsequently constructed a system to control and exploit this commodity.

To satisfy the demand for land created by the stream of European immigrants to North America, the threat represented by American Indians had to be eliminated. Once their land was expropriated, American Indians ceased to be of much concern. The only valuable resource they possessed-their land-was under the control of white society by 1890, and American Indians were thought to be unsuitable as a source of labor.

Mexico, like the United States, had been colonized by a European power-in this case, Spain. In the early 1800s, the Mexican communities in the Southwest were a series of out- post settlements, remote and difficult to defend. Through warfare and a variety of other aggressive means, Mexican citizens living in this area were conquered and became an exploited minority group.

African Americans, American Indians, and Mexican Americans, in their separate ways, became involuntary players in the growth and development of European and, later, American economic and political power. None of these groups had much choice in their respective fates; all three were overpowered and relegated to an inferior, subordinate sta- tus. Many views of assimilation {such as the "melting pot" metaphor discussed in Chapter 2) hnve little relevance to these situations. These minority groups had little con· trol over their destinies, their degree of acculturation, or even their survival as groups. These three groups were coercively acculturated in the context of paternalistic relations in an agrarian economy. Meaningful integration {structural assimilation) was not a real pos- sibility, especially for African Americans and American Indians. In Milton Gordon's (1964) terms (see Chapter 2), we might characterize these situations as "acculturation without integration" or structural pluralism. Given the grim realities described in this chapter, Gordon's terms seem a little antiseptic, and Blauner's concept of colonized minor- ity groups seems far more descriptive.

• COMPARATIVE FOCUS . - ~ -

Mexico, Canada, and the United States In this chapter, we argued that dominant-minority relations are profoundly shaped by the contact situation and by the characteristics of the groups involved (especially their subsistence technologies). We saw how these factors shaped rela- tions with Native Americans and Mexican Americans and how they led British colonists to create a system of slavery to control the labor of African Americans. How do the experiences of the Spanish and the French in the Western Hemisphere compare with those of the British in what became the United States? What roles did the contact situation and subsistence technology play in the development of group relations in these two neighbors of the United States?1

The Spanish were the first of the three European nations to invade the Western Hemisphere, and they conquered much of what is now Central and South America about a century before Jamestown was founded. In 1521, they defeated the Aztec Empire, located in what is now central Mexico. The Aztec Empire was large, highly organized, and complex. The Emperor ruled over scores of subject nations, each with its own language and identity, and the great majority of his subjects were peasants or agricultural laborers who farmed small plots of land owned by members of the elite classes, to whom they paid rents. Peasants are a fundamental part of any labor-intensive, preindustrial agrarian society and were 1ust as common m Spain as they were among the Aztecs.

When the Spanish defeated the Aztecs, they destroyed their cities, their temples, and their leadership (the emperor, the nobility, priests, etc.). They did not destroy the Aztec social structure; rather, they absorbed it and used it for their own benefit. For example, the Aztec Empire had financed Its central government by collecting taxes and rents from citizens and tnbute from conquered tribes. The Spanish simply grafted their own tax collection system onto this structure and diverted the flow from the Aztec elite classes (which they had, at any rate, destroyed) to themselves (Russell, 1994, pp. 29-30).

The Spanish tendency to absorb rather than destroy operated at many levels. For example, Aztec peasants became Spanish (and then Mexican) peasants, occupying roughly the same role in the new society that they had in the old, save for paying their rents to different landlords. There was also extensive interbreeding between the Spanish and the con- quered tribes of Mexico, but, unlike the situation in the English colonies, the Spanish recognized the resultant racial diversity and developed an elaborate system for classifying people by race. They recognized as many as 56 racial groups, including whites, mestizos (mixed European-Indian), and mulattoes (mixed European-African) (Russell, 1994, p. 35). The society that emerged was highly race conscious, and race was highly correlated with social class: The elite classes were white, and the lower classes were nonwhite. However, the large-scale intermarriage and the official recognition of mixed-race peoples did establish the foundation for a racially mixed society. Today, the huge majority of the Mexican population is mestizo, although there remains a very strong correlation between race and class, and the elite positions in the society tend to be monopolized by people of "purer" European ancestry.

The French began to colonize canada at about the same time the English established their colonies further south. The dominant economic enterprise in the early days was not farming, but trapping and the fur trade. The French devel- oped a lucrative trade in this area by allying themselves with some American Indian tribes. The Indians produced the furs and traded them to the French, who, in turn, sold them on the world market. Like the Spanish in Mexico, the French In Canada tended to link to and absorb Native American social structures. There was also a significant amount of inter- marriage between the French and Native Americans, resulting in a mixed-race group, called Metis, who had their own identities and, indeed, their own settlements along the Ganadian frontier (Russell, 1994, p. 39).

Note the profound differences in these three contact situations between Europeans and Native Americans. The Spanish confronted a large, well-organized social system and found it expeditious to adapt Aztec practices to their own benefit. The French developed an economy that required cooperation with at least some of the Native American tribes they encountered, and they, too, found benefits in adaptation. The tribes encountered by the English were much smaller and much less developed than the Aztecs, and there was no particular reason for the English to adapt to or absorb these social structures. Furthermore, because the business of the English colonies was agriculture (not trapping), the compe- tition at the heart of the contact situation was for land, and American Indians were seen as rivals for control of that most valuable resource. Thus, the English tended to confront and exclude American Indians, keeping them on the outside of their emerging society and building strong boundaries between their own "civilized" world and the "savages" that sur- rounded them. The Spanish and French colonists had to adapt their societies to fit with American Indians, but the English faced no such restraints. They could create their institutions and design their social structure to suit themselves (Russell, 1994, p. 30).

As we have seen, one of the institut:ons created in the English colonies was slavery based on African labor. Slavery was also practiced in New Spam (Mexico) and New France (canada), but the institution evolved in very different ways in those colonies and never assumed the importance that it did in the United States. Why? As you might suspect, the answer has a lot to do wlth the nature of the contact situation. Like the English colonists, both the Spanish and French attempted large-scale agricultural enterprises that might have created a demand for imported slave labor. In the case of New Spain, however, there was a ready supply of Native American peasants available to fill the role played by blacks in the English colonies. Although Africans became a part of the admixture that shaped modern Mexico racially and socially, demand for black slaves never matched that of the English colonies. Similarly, in canada, slaves from Africa were sometimes used, but farmers there tended to rely on the flow of labor from France to fill their agricultural needs. The British opted for slave labor from Africa over indentured labor from Europe, and the French made the opposite decision.

Another difference among the three European nations that helps explain the divergent development of group relations is their relative levels of modernization. Compared with England, Spain and France were more traditional and feudalistic m their cultures and social structures. Among other things, this meant that they had to shape their agricultural enterprises in the New World around the ancient social relations between peasants and landlords they brought from the Old World. Thus, the Spanish and French colonists were limited in their actions by these ancient customs, traditions, and under- standings. Such old-fashioned institutions were much weaker in England, and, thus, the English colonists were much freer to design their social structure to suit their own needs. Whereas the Spanish and French had to shape their colonial societies to fit both American Indian social patterns and European traditions, the English could improvise and attend only to their own needs and desires. The closed, complex, and repressive institution of American slavery-designed and crafted from scratch in the New World-was one result.

Finally, we should note that many of the modern racial characteristics of these three neighboring societies were fore- shadowed m their colonial origins (e.g., the greater concentration of African Americans in the United States and the more racially intermixed population of Mexico). The differences run much deeper than race alone, of course, and include differences in class structure and relative levels of industrialization and affluence. For our purposes, however, this brief comparison of the origins of dominant-minority relations underscores the importance of the contact situation in shaping group relations for centuries to come.

- - - - - CURRENT DEBATES - - -- . - -- ---- _..,. ~ - - - - -- - .,.._ - "--' ' .....,, ,. - -- - - ~ - - - - - ._ - - - - ....,,_ - -

How Did Slavery Affect the Origins of African American Culture? A debate over the impact of slavery on Afr1can Amencan culture began m the 1960s and continues to the present day. Stanley Elkins, in his 1959 book Slavery: A Problem in American Institutional and Intellectual Life, laid down the terms of the debate. Elkins concluded that Afr1can American culture m the United States was created in response to the repressive plantation system and in the context of brutalization, total control of the slaves by their owners, and dehumanization. He argued that black culture was "made m America, " but in an abnormal, even pathological social setting. The plantation was a sick society that dominated and infantilized black slaves. The dominant reality for slaves-and the only significant other person in their lives-was the master. Elkins described the system as a "per- verted patriarchy" that psychologically forced the slaves to identify with their oppressors and to absorb the racist values at the core of the structure.