Race and Manifest Destiny: The Origins of American Racial Anglo-Saxonism

by Reginald Horsman

Book Overview

American myths about national character tend to overshadow the historical realities. Reginald Horsman's book is the first study to examine the origins of racialism in America and to show that the belief in white American superiority was firmly ensconced in the nation's ideology by 1850.

The author deftly chronicles the beginnings and growth of an ideology stressing race, basic stock, and attributes in the blood. He traces how this ideology...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 067494805X
• ISBN13: 9780674948051
• Release Date: December 1981
• Publisher: Harvard University Press
• Length: 380 Pages
• Weight: 1.00 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.0" x 6.0" x 9.2"

Customer Reviews

Uncertain Destiny

This is a sober and sobering work out of the University of Wisconsin. Sober as it matter-of-factly traces the roots and the entrenchment of Anglo-Saxon racism in America. Sobering at a pivotal time in the history of this country as we anticipate the results of our next presidential election. Just how large a part will that entrenched, closet racism play in our choice? Disquieting as it raises its ugly head in discourse over immigration. Horsman picks up the narrative in the mid-sixteenth century with the English church beginning to cobble together a mythos regarding the origins of Anglo-Saxons to justify a desired break with Rome. The myth begins to take shape as a story of a Teutonic people of Aryan origins with a love of liberty and superior talents for government following the sun westward improving other societies as they went. From humble origins the myth evolves through the centuries into a full-fledged, ardent belief in the superiority of the Caucasian "race" and in the superiority of the Anglo-Saxon "race" over other Caucasians. Jefferson believed it as did Adams. Though the founding fathers' beliefs were tempered by the Enlightenment, the system they founded contemplated equality only for Caucasians. By the middle of the nineteenth century, in America, the myth had evolved into a rabid, racist belief system worthy of Nazi Germany, stark, unabashed, startling to the modern mind. But, from a strictly rational point of view, who could blame them? The evidence of the superiority of the Caucasion race was worldwide. Colored races were under the boot of the Anglo-Saxon over the entire globe and improving little despite the clear example set for them by the Anglo-Saxon. To the extent that any improvement did occur, it was only by the infusion of Anglo-Saxon blood. Modern "sciences" such as phrenology, the study of the bumps on and the shape of the skull, added weight to the argument. Plus, the argument had great utility. It could be used both to denigrate Indians who would not adapt and change to the Anglo-Saxon manner and to strip those who did of the lands they had developed. It was useful for keeping the Negro in bondage because without support from the Anglo-Saxon the Negro would sink and die away. It justified stripping a weak neighbor to the south of its northern territories, (Texas, New Mexico (including Arizona) and California), one million square miles of land, to facilitate Anglo-Saxon destiny: to follow the sun westward, back to the locus of origin, improving the world as it went, subjugating, extinguishing if necessary, inferior races along the way. The primary argument over the taking of these Mexican territories was not over its morality, although this did come up here and there from voices in the wilderness, but instead over what to do with the Mexicans, a mongrel, worthless people, slothful, indolent. Ironically, one of the voices raised loudly then in concern over the assimilability

If you are studying the origins of race in America this book is for you!

This book was very interesting and well written. I had not known the breadth of racial distinctions in early American societies, but this book dove into them beautifully. The author explained wonderfully the origins of the terms used today to categorize and distinguish the "Anglo-Saxon" from the rest. This book finally explained to me the supposed "superiority" of the "Anglo-Saxon" race.

comrehensive - well-researched

MY rofessor assigned this book in our nationalism class at UCLA- IT is comrehensive and well-researched. Traces the develoment of anglo-saxonism as a nationalist identity across continents.