Whiteness as a racial hierarchy predated and shaped American slavery discourse.

Evidence

The imprimatur of the racial order that had developed for centuries within Europe was decidedly on the mind of Benjamin Franklin when he wrote: “The Number of purely white People in the World is proportionately very small. All Africa is black or tawny. Asia chiefly tawny. America (exclusive of the new Comers) wholly so. And in Europe, the Spaniards, Italians, French, Russians and Swedes, are generally of what we call a swarthy Complexion; as are the Germans also, the Saxons only excepted, who with the English, make the principal Body of White People on the Face of the Earth. I could wish their Numbers were increased.” — Cedric J. Robinson, Black Marxism_ The Making of the Black…, 1701

Categorization

• XREF: Franklin’s exportable hierarchy of whiteness foreshadows the racial taxonomy the Black radical tradition defines itself against. — connects to: Whiteness is the load-bearing fiction behind America’s racial architecture. — Robert P. Jones, White Too Long: The Legacy of White…, 65; US slavery’s bipolar color caste recruited the lowest whites into policing status — Noel Ignatiev, How the Irish Became White, 361; Whiteness is the load-bearing fiction that entire American institutions defend at staggering cost — Robert P. Jones, White Too Long: The Legacy of White…, 65 (+1 more)
• SHARE: A striking Ben Franklin quote that a friend into early American racial thought would savor.