Christians used the Curse of Ham to justify enslaving Africans

Evidence

From the time the first Europeans settled North America until the late nineteenth century, most White Americans believed they were chosen by God to rule over Africans, whose dark skin they believed was the curse of Ham. According to the biblical story, when Ham, the youngest of Noah’s three sons, sees his father naked, Noah curses the descendants of Canaan, Ham’s son, to perpetual servitude. European and American Christians believed Black people, and more specifically Africans, were the descendants of Ham. Noah’s curse, thus, condemned Blacks to slavery. That is, Blacks were inferior, evil, and heathen because their land of origin, Africa, was the “Dark Continent,” a place lacking civilization and culture. — Sahar F. Aziz, The Racial Muslim, 219

Categorization

• DEFINE: Explains the Curse of Ham doctrine and how it functioned as a theological racial taxonomy.
• XREF: 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