An early colonial letter invoked the biblical curse of Ham to racialize blacks

Evidence

Settlers brought with them prevailing European conceptions of race at the time. Giliomee reports a letter of 1707 from a group of European burghers residing in Stellenbosch, for example, characterizing “untrustworthy” blacks as “the blood of Ham.” This biblically charged view attributing the mark of physically signifying difference was circulating increasingly in European intellectual circles of the day, indicating the fixing of political distinction in terms of religious curse. — David Theo Goldberg, The Threat of Race, 1352

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the ‘blood of Ham’ curse mythology echoed across colonial contexts, including its use to justify African enslavement in the Americas. — connects to: Cape settlers imported the biblical Ham myth to rationalize racial control by 1707 — David Theo Goldberg, The Threat of Race: Reflections on…, 1352; The mark of Cain justified white supremacy alongside the curse of Ham — Robert P. Jones, White Too Long: The Legacy of White…, 663
• ADDENDUM: Could inform a follow-up on how religious curse narratives (‘book of Genesis’ framework) functioned as racial infrastructure, parallel to how ‘immodesty’ panics encoded religious-coded class signaling.