Anonymous
Race and Identity 512
17 February 2013
Short Paper: 2 One of the main social and political tasks of 1830’s America was to define what it was to be a free American. Challenged by reformist ideals “purifying” the land and the Industrial Revolution cementing capitalism into the framework of the nation’s economy, Black people and Indians found themselves pushed out of the national identity. Much of this struggle can be witnessed through an analysis of American theater at the time. Stereotypical portrayals of Black Americans through Black Face Minstrelsy and of American Indians in Indian Plays highlight how White Americans invented social constructs to dehumanize or ridicule “other’ races and protect an imagined White American identity with no static definition. The basis for arguing in defense of a singular definition or identity begins with the denial of all others. In the case of White Americans, this was accomplished by dehumanizing all “other” races. With the advent of abolition and its ideals permeating society, Black slaves had the hope that freedom was attainable, and free White’s adopted fears of a common people class developing in the future with “unthinkable” consequences like widespread amalgamation. Slavery would no longer be the precondition for separatism. The void was filled in part by theories of racial science as developed by scientists like Craniologist Samuel Morton. According to his studies, races could be determined by the size and shape of their skulls and by consequence the variances are what made brains larger or smaller, well equipped or malformed, the White Race most superior to all others. (Fabian) How could black people, free or slave, be considered Americans if they were not even fully developed and evolved humans? At the same time racial scientists were defining identities based on physical “biology”, Minstrel Shows and