Like no white proletariat developed because there really wasn’t a white proletariat. At least a sizable one for a significant period of time. The worst jobs went to (usually) black slaves. White labour either costed a lot more, or griped with over exertion as non whipped people tended to do. Putting white people as labourers tended to import a lot of the class problems of the mother country. As said in Counter Revolution of 1776:
For the absence of Africans would serve to allow class and ethnic tensions among Europeans to fester, replicating Europe on the mainland, which was not exactly the goal of many colonizers. Banning Africans would mean that Europeans would have to perform tasks they might not otherwise, while being bossed—perhaps menaced—by other Europeans. Adding enslaved Africans, on the other hand, meant that brute agricultural labor could be assigned to the degraded dark folk, which would boost certain Europeans up the class ladder and enrich others.
Whiteness afaik wasn’t a common term before slavery. Europe before 1700 was filled with divisive hatreds between countries and religions. The English feared the Spanish and the Irish. Protestants despised Catholics. Whiteness was designed to create an artificial solidarity against the slaves who were, in many places, a majority and a real threat to the settlers of an area. Wrote Dr. Horne:
Then there was the developing notion of “whiteness,” smoothing tensions between and among people hailing from the “old” continent, which was propelled by the need for European unity to confront raging Africans and indigenes: this, inter alia, served to unite settlers in North America with what otherwise might have been their French and Spanish antagonists, laying the basis for a kind of democratic advance, as represented in the freedom of religion in the emergent U.S. Constitution.
I read this thinking about how European whites more feel a sense of class conflict compared to settler countries where it’s been hidden for centuries. Or at least until recently as fascism has been rearing its head. White solidarity, and I assume a social pact, has reduced a lot of class antagonisms in settler countries, especially as non whites are often exploited harder.
BTW, if you’re not yet a “read Settlers” person, I’m not saying that you white worker are not exploited. This is especially true now as Western hegemony is failing and internal exploitation is increasing. Maybe you’re like me, had working class parents who did well because they were white after WW2, and you’re struggling but doing better than other marginalised people.
Sorry to make you all read my book report. It helps to remember what I read.
Having recently read CR 1776 myself this point really struck me too. Horne’s assertion that the newly created white identity was also useful as a way to keep the many indentured servants working in the sugar colonies from developing any solidarity with the slaves was in many ways the last piece I needed for a lot of other things about America to start making sense to me.
To add to your point on whiteness being invented for slavery in the future United States, Bacon’s Rebellion is a good case study and illustrative turning point on this. Bacon’s Rebellion was multiracial and was perceived as having made a significant threat to the ruling classes at the time. In response, those ruling classes got together and began creating state policies on the basis of the new delineation of black vs. white (using their language of the time, of course). These policies accomplished exactly what you have described and their creation and the reasons for their existence are plainly spelled out. Black workers (workers, indentured servants, slaves, etc) faced worse treatment than before while the newly white workers got basically the same treatment with very minor “perks”. There isn’t even any need to carefully analyze material forces, that part is very explicit!
Actually book reports are good and there should be more of them
Thanks for writing this up. I learned something today.
The only way a Joe Biden is going to be a comrade is if they are Joe Biden, they do not benefit from Joe Biden, they don’t believe in Joe Biden out of their own self interest like as not Joe Biden do. There’s only one way we are going to build Joe Biden in the west, and that is through some kind of religious movement, we need a cult of Joe Biden for the crackers
When I was at this welfare contractor I used to go to, one of my fellow participants was telling some sort of anecdote, and I remember that she seemed to struggle to find her words when describing one person, before she ultimately decided to call him something along the lines of “white, as it were”. This is a vague memory, so I really can’t recall anything more specific about what she said; but regardless, it seemed almost like she found the idea of calling someone “white” a bit strange, and yet she could not think of any other term to use in that moment.
And though I ultimately did not butt in, I was still thinking of saying, “Well, are people really ‘white’ in Norway?” — I have a lot of thoughts about the changing position/role of race in Europe and my place in this changing paradigm, but I don’t know how much I should share of my thoughts, because there’s certainly a lot of history I’m ignorant of and a lot of theory I haven’t read, and it would generally be difficult to assemble my thoughts into anything cohesive.
