Teodorescu M.

Catalina
American Studies
23rd June 2014

The Concept of Race in the Context of American Colonization Impact and

Consequences on Non-Whites
Peter H. Wood, professor at Duke University in North Carolina, is a historian
which wrote some of the most influential books on African-American culture such as
Black Majority: Negroes in Colonial South Carolina from 1670 through the Stono
Rebellion (1974), Strange New Land: Africans in Colonial America (2002) or
Weathering the Storm: Inside Winslow Homer's Gulf Stream (2004). Among his works,
he wrote an article in which he presents the concept of race and how this concept changed
through time in the context of the American colonization also referring to the impact it
had and still has on society. This essay focuses on comparing his ideas from the article
with examples from African-American literature such as Alex Haleys Roots and
Solomon Northups Twelve Years a Slave , books which best describe the meaning of the
word race to modern man and underline social stereotypes regarding racial differences
which are still present in our society. I choose these two books because they have the
same subject: a free African (or African American in Northup's book) is kidnaped from
his home and sold into slavery facing harsh treatment and as well as physical and
psychological abuse). The fist part of the essay will include the meaning an origin of the
word race and why it was used, as well as how European and American scientists used
this concept to promote their own ideas regarding nonwhites.
The article has a formal style and the language is academic. Peter H. Woods does not
refer to the meaning of the word race as can be found in a modern dictionary. Race is
used to describe a group of people which share the same physical features with emphasis
on skin color or which speak the same language, have the same history or customs but the
explanation which best describes this word today is the following: the human race, all
the people in the world when considered as a single group (race Def. 2a Macmillan
English Dictionary for Advanced Learners. Ed. Bloomsburry Publishing.2006. Print).
Based on the ideas in Peter H. Woods article, this concept first appeared in the
Renaissance in the context of European expansion and conquest of new found territories
such as America, as a way for Europeans to try to understand and classify the native

inhabitants of the new continent. A scientific background was shorty attributed to this
concept as white Europeans were trying to establish a hirerarchy amongst themselves and
the existing non-white polulations.
Peter Woods explains that during Columbus's time, when America was discovered,
people didn't have the right framework to understand diversity of human skin color. They
relied on Biblical interpretations and were judgemental regarding skin color thinking that
is was a determinant for a person's intelligence, morality and strenght. Also, human
interaction in the context of either trade or warfare shaped these prejudices regarding
psysical and cultural differences. In other words, each group of people, which encunters
another group of people with significant differences in apprearance and culture from their
own is clasified by the other as barbaric. Europeans named non-whites barbarians and
non-whites did the same to Europeans as can been seen in the following extracts from the
books previouly mentioned as references: "I will bring the toubob!Binta would yell at
Kunta when he had tried her patience to the breaking point, scaring Kinta most thorougly,
for the old grandmothers spoke often of the hairy, red-faced, stragelooking white men
whose big canoes stole people away from their homes" (Haley, Alex. Roots. 1974,
Crasseux.com/books. Web.12 July 2014).