Climate theory could justify the slave trade as improving Africans

Evidence

Races were not fixed and “fitted for different climates,” Smith argued. “The Goths, the Mogus, the Africans have become infinitely meliorated by changing those skies, for which it is said they were peculiarly fitted by nature.” Smith breathlessly asserted that the slave trade—the cause of millions of deaths—had substantially improved the African condition. — Ibram X. Kendi, Stamped from the Beginning, 300

Categorization

• DEFINE: Shows how the ‘climate theory’ (environmental/changeable view of race) co-existed with — even powered — racists’ justifications of slavery, complicating a neat ideas-before-policy reading.
• SEED: The ‘amelioration’ argument — that an evil institution improved its victims — is a recurring rhetorical move in racism that could anchor a taxonomy piece.