The Dawning of the Apocalypse: The Roots of Slavery, White Supremacy, Settler Colonialism, and Capitalism in the Long Sixteenth Century

by Gerald Horne

August 2019 saw numerous commemorations of the year 1619, when what was said to be the first arrival of enslaved Africans occurred in North America. Yet in the 1520s, the Spanish, from their imperial perch in Santo Domingo, had already brought enslaved Africans to what was to become South Carolina. The enslaved people here quickly defected to local Indigenous populations and compelled their captors to flee.

The Dawning of the Apocalypse is a riveting revision of the “creation myth” of settler colonialism and how the United States was formed. Here, Gerald Horne argues forcefully that, in order to understand the arrival of colonists from the British Isles in the early 17th century, one must first understand the “long 16th century”—from 1492 until the arrival of settlers in Virginia in 1607.

During this prolonged century, Horne contends, “whiteness” morphed into “white supremacy.” That allowed England to co-opt not only religious minorities but also various nationalities throughout Europe, forging a muscular bloc that was needed to confront rambunctious Indigenes and Africans.

In retelling the bloodthirsty story of the invasion of the Americas, Horne recounts how the fierce resistance by Africans and their Indigenous allies weakened Spain and enabled London to dispatch settlers to Virginia in 1607. These settlers laid the groundwork for the British Empire and its "revolting spawn" that became the United States of America.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Race, Politics, Theory, American History, The United States Of America

304 pages, Hardcover

First published June 30, 2020

About the author

Dr. Gerald Horne is an eminent historian who is Chair of History and African American Studies at the University of Houston. An author of more than thirty books and one hundred scholarly articles and reviews, his research has addressed issues of racism in a variety of relations involving labor, politics, civil rights, international relations, war and the film industry.

Reviews

[Juhyundred · Rating 3 out of 5]

I really want to give this book more stars because there’s so much good info in here. Horne’s book focuses on the great power contest between Spain & England in the 16th century and how this conflict was fought throughout the Americas, Africa & Europe. I learned a lot, especially about Spanish colonial wars in Florida & New Mexico, how the Protestant schism shaped European great power conflict, the role of the Ottoman & Barbary states in England’s rise to power, and the early development of the Atlantic slave trade. It’s a very comprehensive history but it suffers from a few problems.

1) He doesn’t stick to an explicitly chronological or geographic approach to the history, so the chapters jump between decades and continents in a way that makes following the overall point a little difficult at times. His penchant for complicated side remarks & rhetorical flair makes for a zigzagging writing style that just makes the actual process of reading this book not very fun.

2) His overall thesis argues that the settler colonial project contained the pan-European germ of a future “whiteness” project. This is all well and good but his dedication to repeating this thesis as often as possible sometimes makes for redundant writing, and sometimes for conclusions that don’t feel particularly fleshed out. In one aside, he asserts that the Pilgrim’s affinity for Swiss worship practices was indicative of a “pan Europeanism” which explains why they took so easily to the cause of whiteness by settling New England. The pilgrims certainly played an important role in developing an incipient whiteness, but Horne’s reasoning in this instance seems stretched. At times, it starts to feel like circling back to this point comes at the expense of providing a more rigorous study on how this first century of European colonialism resulted in the uneven economic development of the planet. Horne certainly provides many important economic insights, but he tends to stick to broad strokes rather than get into the nitty gritty. At the end of this book, I felt like I knew more about the development of European warfare and geopolitical jockeying during this period than I did about the fine details of the era’s political economy. I think more of an emphasis on the latter would have actually done more to support Horne’s thesis, which itself just didn’t have to be repeated as many times as it was.

3) The research in the area of focus for this book mostly seemed solid, but there was one glaring instance where Horne was flat out wrong. He cites a 1921 paper to support the claim that the early Americas had regular contact with China prior to European invasion. It’s likely that peoples from Asia and the Pacific ended up in the Americas prior to Columbus, just as Europeans and likely Africans did. There’s even significant evidence to support the inclusion of the Americas in Pacific Islander trade networks. But there is little archeological evidence to support the existence of regular contact between China and the Americas. Horne’s assertion struck me as very strange, given he had to ignore nearly a century of scholarship to the contrary to reach the conclusion that he did. It made me less certain about some of the other historical side comments he made.

All in all, I definitely support people reading this, although I think this book needed a much more rigorous editor. I would also note that as a study focused mostly on the Atlantic, there’s a lot missing from this history, particularly with regards to Indian and Pacific Ocean history that’s also pertinent to the subject.

[Zach Carter · Rating 5 out of 5]

Greatest historian of all time??? Reading Gerald Horne is such a breath of fresh air. I decided to revisit his Big Three (The Dawning of the Apocalypse, The Apocalypse of Settler Colonialism, and The Counterrevolution of 1776) in preparation for his new book (!!!) called The Counterrevolution of 1836: Texas Slavery & Jim Crow and the Roots of American Fascism. He is just so brilliant in weaving together the forces that constructed "whiteness" and imperialism throughout these centuries, and it is truly indispensable to our understanding of settler colonialism and fascism. Now that these are all out, it's really cool to read them in chronological order (reverse publishing order). One of the big takeaways you get from this is that The 1619 Project is so limited in scope, because Dr. Horne wrote this entire book on the century *leading up to* 1619 and it's so rich in material and documentation of the plunder and theft of Africa and the Americas that it can only be viewed as essential reading.

[Reid tries to read · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is essential history reading IMO. The essence of the book is about how Britain came to dominate the globe and how this intersected with the burgeoning concept of “whiteness”. Very eye opening and informative to me.

Western Europe’s battle against Ottoman “heathens” can be seen as a progenitor to racism, as the “heathens” label and pan-European campaign against islam was eventually transmuted onto indigenous peoples of the Americas and Africans. The conflict during the 600-700s on the Iberian peninsula between Muslims and what would become the Spanish can be seen as an event which crystallized an embryonic form of racism. Muslims at the time had a dominant position over Europeans (Muslims had access to the majority of the world’s gold in Africa and dominated the Iberian Peninsula as well as much of the Mediterranean) and were therefore seen as enemies to Europe. Europeans described them as “black”, which had long been associated with the devil and diabolical creatures. In the Christian dominated areas of the Peninsula, Muslims/non-Christians were forbade from entering sexual relations with Christians, which functioned as proto anti-miscegenation laws. At the time the Ottomans on the Peninsula had slaves of all backgrounds, from Europeans to Africans.

The crusades of 1095 also helped cultivate a pan-European identity (a precursor to “whiteness”) in opposition to Muslims. The crusade was essentially a result of the continually growing fear of Muslim domination of all of Europe. By the 1300s Christian Europe seemed in terminal decline when compared to the Islamic world. Therefore, feeling like their backs were against the wall, Christianity formed a brutal ‘create converts or die’ ethos. At the same time, in the late 1300s to early 1400s, European colonizers of many different ethnicities, such as French, Castilians, and Genoese, were in Africa. Most were escaping the harsh persecution of the inquisition (a product of the ‘convert or die’ mentality), and were bringing the germ of pan-European “whiteness” with them. The religious persecution of late feudal Europe was setting the stage for the early formation of whiteness, settler colonialism, and white supremacy.

By 1492 in Spain there was still a diverse array of slaves, from “white” Christian Greeks and Russians, to “Turkish” Egyptians and Moors, to Jews to “black Africans”; most slaves were from Africa, second most were from Eastern Europe. Post 1493, after the Black Death, there was a drop in Slavic slave numbers around the Mediterranean, and the number of African slaves rose to take their place. Facilitating this increase in African slave trade were technological maritime developments like Portugal’s invention of the caravel, which made sailing long distances to and from Africa easier. This lured West Africans away from trading with the interior of Africa at the same time that the Iberians had been lured away from trading with North Africa (due to being cut off by Muslims and the Ottomans) towards easier picking in the Americas. Although they did not have superiority over the Ottomans, Portuguese mastery of both Arabic and Greek sailing techniques, plus the invention of the canon, allowed them to set the stage for globalization. They pioneered advances in both naval warfare and long distance maritime shipping, creating ships primarily to set sail to and from Asian trade routes. Likewise, Europe’s constant state of inter-European warfare resulted in Europeans making advancements in military technology and weaponry, including the creation of guns and muskets. Eventually, older and less useful models of guns were traded to Africa as part of the slave trade while newer models were used to subdue Africans and Indigenous Americans alike.

When arriving to the Americas in 1492 Columbus quickly rounded up 1,200 indigenous people, enslaved them, and selected 500 to be sent to Spain. Columbus and his crew had trained for this from earlier voyages to Guinea, where they had participated in many of the same enslavement activities. In response to Christian brutality, the Indigenous Americans often either killed themselves or fought against their captors to the death. This spurred on the need to bring in slaves to the Americas from a new source to work the mines, corral the cattle, and harvest the sugar on plantations. Since European slaves were indistinguishable from European conquerors, and since many were aided to freedom by fellow Christians, dark skinned Muslim Africans became an essential source of slaves imported to the “New World”. As the Spanish began importing African slaves (partly due to the assumption that Africans were more efficient laborers) a pattern began to emerge. The Indigenous would fight back, killing the Spanish and slowing their encroachment into Indigenous territory. At the same time African slaves too began to rebel. The costs of subduing both the Indigenous and African slaves gave London an opening onto which it too would colonize the American mainland over a century later.

The ascent of Martin Luther in 1517 and the subsequent schism was another factor which would come to influence the ‘apocalypse of settler colonialism’. The hatred that Martin Luther and the Protestants had towards Jews (who he forbade from preaching, insisted their property should be seized, argued should be put into forced labor, and claimed killing them would not constitute a sin) would be displaced onto Africans. Scenes of proto-lynching could be found in 1535 London, when several Catholic religious leaders were hung from a tower, dismembered, and eventually decapitated. As a matter of survival Protestants engaged in a form of realpolitik as they disassociated themselves with Luther’s virulent anti-semitism in order to ally with Jews against a common enemy: the Catholics. Protestant England, too, would ally with Turks and Moors against their enemy Catholic Spain

By the mid 1500s, as more indigenous Americans were genocided on a biblical level, more Africans were needed for cheap labor in the colonies (and often within the metropole of Spain as well). As African slaves swelled in numbers to the point where they greatly outnumbered their captors, more and more of them began to rebel, especially when many were armed by the Spanish in an effort to fight the indigenous peoples. To note the importance of Indigenous Americans and African slaves in combat Horne points to the largest battle fought between Europeans and indigenes which occurred in 1540 in what is now present day Alabama. Thousands died as Spain, led by Hernando De Soto, were victorious over chief Tuscaloosa and his army. One of the largest factors leading to this victory were the 400+ African and Indigenous slaves that bolstered the Spanish army. This arming of slaves often backfired when escaped slaves, now armed and trained, and indigenous peoples often would team up to fight back. The need for a whiteness project was becoming more and more evident, but it became apparent that what was stopping this was the religious sectarianism of various European peoples. As the Ottomans grew stronger Spain began to rely harder and harder on its colonies to generate wealth and bolster the empire against the Ottoman menace. However, Spanish authorities also were paranoid of Protestant subversion, putting strict regulations on who could enter the colonies (those prohibited included Jews, Moors, and “New Christians”). Catholicism had become a hindrance towards moving the settler colonial project forward.

By the 1540s England was in a state of permanent war as around 1 in 6 men were conscripted. London’s population tripled from 40,000 in 1500 to 120,000 in 1550, indicative of unrest in the countryside leading to refugees fleeing into urban centers. War with Scotland had also driven the country into deep debt. To relieve these tensions of debt and unrest they began taking part, in greater and greater measures, in the African slave trade. Many of the men who sailed to Africa were themselves avoiding slavery, as England made vagrancy and refusal to work punishable by slavery. Many of these men made use of their military training to be more effective slavers. Others took their chances and set sail to the Americas in search of a more hopeful life in the New World. As overproduction of cotton led to supply outstripping demand, English merchants began looking for new, more profitable markets. This venture ultimately lead them to the African slave trade. The slave trade boomed the British economy, exemplified by the fact that in 1500 Liverpool was a town with a single horse, but by 1600 it was the size of a genuine city and would continue to grow off the financial backing of enslavement. While Catholicism was a hindrance to the Spanish colonial project, Protestantism in England became a pillar of England’s ability to push settler colonialism forward. This began, in large part, due to England outlawing the ability for Africans to convert to Protestantism (which they often did to escape enslavement).

As slavery became a bigger part of England’s economy more ideological blinders were needed to cloak the brutality of the practice with a veneer of justification. First, people began to believe in a supposed biblical “curse of ham” which purportedly mandated the enslavement of Africans. Then, in 1555, the word “negro” began entering into common usage as a way to describe Africans. The change in name signaled a more overt dehumanization of black slaves. They were not Africans they were now something different and, therefore, not as human or at least a different type of human than a European.

Spanish genocide of the original peoples of South America was brutal but costly. In 1560 in the Central Valley, for example, there was a population of around 400,000 indigenous. By 1611 there were around 8,000. This genocide sparked fierce resistance, which took a toll on the Spanish empire who began to weaken. This all allowed for England to gain a toehold in the Americas. At home England passed overbearing and draconian laws against Catholics including statewide surveillance of them. Across the ocean, however, these laws were not implemented for the very reason of helping cultivate a “whiteness” project. Spain began to feel the squeezing pressures of Ottoman naval victories, Protestant revolution across Europe, and encroachment of other European powers like England in the Americas and reacted accordingly: without a whiteness project in the New World their solution was total extermination and cleansing of indigenous Americans; they were drowned, sterilized, had their property confiscated, and were forcibly shipped to faraway lands. In the metropole Spain expelled 300,000+ Moriscos (descendants of Muslims). Next, in 1565, Spain created the first colony on the Mainland of North America in Florida; the experiences England faced in Ireland would prepare them to contest both the indigenous and the Spanish for control of this mainland. Many of the men who carried out the total war enacted against the men, women, and children of Ireland would make their way to the Americas, like Sir Humphrey Gilbert who posted decapitated heads on spikes outside his home.

The 1570s was a pivotal decade for British imperialism, as many events transpired which paved the way for English global dominance. One was the dramatic defeat of the Ottoman Turks at the naval battle of Lepanto. In the battle the Ottomans, who had been preparing for decades, faced off against a combined Catholic army which included Spanish, Italian, Genoan, and Venetian forces. Afterwards the Mediterranean was opened up fully to European conquest while pushing the Ottomans back. The Mediterranean functioned as a training ground for England to further learn the ropes of the slave trade, which was quickly becoming the region’s main attraction.
In 1578 the Portuguese were defeated in the battle of Alcazar by Moroccans. This led to Morocco turning into a slaving nation after selling the captives of this battle into slavery while at the same time extinguishing Portuguese imperial ambitions, which never recovered from this defeat.

The Spanish also suffered their own setbacks when, in 1576, they were beleaguered by an uprising in its Florida colony. Failing to pay their soldiers in coin, the Spanish began allowing them to import their own slaves from Africa. This decision combined with another poor measure, that of sending ‘undesirables’ from Cuba to Florida, and the inherent tensions within the Florida colony exacerbated. As tensions mounted the Spanish began a new round of Indian extermination campaigns. The Indians pushed the Spanish back and caused them to retreat. By this point Spain began seriously considering abandoning its colony. Ultimately, the decimation of the Native population in Florida combined with the subsequent weakening of Spain’s own power on the continent to open up a beachhead for the British to land their own colonial expeditions.

Spain had done the dirty work of settler-colonialism and paid the price. Being surrounded by angry Native Americans, having to quell internal dissent of African slaves, running out of money to pay their soldiers, and always worrying about encroaching Frenchmen fully stopped them from expanding their colony out of St. Augustine. The English happily took advantage of Spain’s dirty work once Spain no longer had the strength to stop them from doing so. This occurred in 1588 when Spain’s “Invincible Armada” was proven very much to have vulnerabilities. By the late 1580s the religious war between Protestants (particularly in England) and Catholics (particularly in Spain) was scaldingly hot. In 1572 Catholics committed a mass murder of Protestants in France killing between, according to different estimates, 25,000-40,000 Protestants. It was so brutal that pregnant women had their wombs ripped out. This bloodletting reverberated for decades and exacerbated hatred between the two sects across the continent. Spain’s swallowing up of Portugal subsequently made it, and therefore Catholicism itself, the greatest power the world had ever seen up to that point. So, in 1587, it was no surprise when the Queen of England kicked all Catholic priests out of Ireland, a particularly violent hotspot of unrest for England, under threat of disembowelment. Next, she outlawed any Catholic religious services and confiscated 300,000 acres of Catholic land. The Catholics of England who had to endure such cleansing and state-sanctioned violence would become prime candidates to leave England for the British Empire’s American colonial project. This religious paranoia and hatred (which led to coups and subversion between Britain and Spain across the continent via other countries’ internal religious dissenters) plus British encroachment in the Americas led to a failed Spanish naval invasion of the British mainland in 1588. Spain twice attempted to invade England, both entirely failures. Afterwards, attempts to invade England via Ireland were also met with similar levels of success. The main stressor to Spain in the Americas was Britain’s colony in Roanoke (modern Carolina). From this very first attempted colony the British settler project was one imbued with class collaboration; merchants and investors picked up the tab on the colonies while artisans, landowners, lumpenproletarians, and the like did the genocidal grunt work of actually settling the land.

By 1595 Spain’s Florida colony was in bad shape. The empire itself was stretched thin, and the only solution for the colony itself seemed to be importing more slaves from Cuba. Soldiers went unpaid (at one point 5 years without pay), leading to constant unrest and a few failed uprisings. Often unruly soldiers were just shipped off to Cuba, simply sending the problem elsewhere. In essence Spain was playing a game of whack-a-mole, but each time a mole was hit more kept surfacing at higher frequencies and in greater numbers. Undeterred by their troubles in Florida, in 1590 Spain attempted to set up a colony in present day New Mexico. Again, due to strict Catholic regulations that required all settlers to be Catholics, the colony was severely hamstrung with a lack of manpower and soldiery. Spanish invaders in the region and the Natives slaughtered each other, and although the original peoples of New Mexico were pushed back, the settlers were reduced to eating charcoal to avoid starvation. Both sides pyrrhically wounded each other. At the same time that the Spanish colonies of “New Spain” were facing the harsh difficulties of settler colonialism, Spain was also facing increased competition from the Dutch, both within Europe and abroad. After the failed Spanish invasions of England, the British began offering increased assistance to the Dutch. The Dutch Republic competed with Spain in both African and Asian trade routes while also contesting Spain in Chile, Mexico, and the Philippines.

In 1607 English settlers landed in Virginia. The native population of the area had been battling Europeans for about a century, which had ultimately weakened them more and made them susceptible to invasion and conquest. The settlers of these original English colonies were united across class and religious lines. Landless/propertyless classes, middle classes, and financiers alike joined together in their genocide against the Native Americans. From shareholders in the East India Trading company to former rebellious prisoners now “rehabilitated” into free laborers, the British classes had to work together in a class compromise to settle the Americas. Likewise, religious differences were put aside in the New World, exemplified by the fact that the governor of Britain’s Maryland colony was a Catholic. In a foreign land with hostile and deadly inhabitants, the brutal logistics of settler colonialism led to race supplanting religion as the animus of society. Britain had the foresight to dispel their unruly Catholic population to the colonies, where they would be relabeled as “white” and given opportunities to rise to fame and fortune through the conquests of colonialism. Today this foresight has developed, mutated, spread, and become an omnipresent force in everyday life. The myth of race and whiteness is still one of the great barriers imposed by the ruling class that block the way towards a better world.

[Michael · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is the first book by Horne I’ve read but it definitely won’t be the last. It is so well researched and just replete with historical information and references to dates, events, peoples, and belief systems that it’s easy to miss the forest for the trees sometimes. That being said, the main threads of the book—the forces giving rise to European settler colonialism embodied first by Spain then by England and the coeval rise of a white identity in service of the colonial project—are clearly argued and consistently related to the constant barrage of facts Horne throws at you. Seriously, it felt like I got whiplash trying to follow the breadth of historical events Horne sometimes jams into a single paragraph. It’s definitely a book that rewards going through with a fine-toothed comb.

INTRO

The intro situates the book in the historical timeline occupying roughly from the medieval period up to the "long sixteenth century" (1492-1607). It aims to explain the global forces and historical predicates for the "apocalypse" that would befall the Americas and Africa under the colonial abuses of Spain then England and, ultimately, the US. These global forces include the confrontation between European Chistiandom and Islam, the ascendency of the Ottomans, the economic and political implications of the fall of Constantinople in 1453, and more. These forces define the historical predicates without which the apocalypse could not have been carried out: the military advances especially in firearms technology developed in Western Europe, the westward turn to the Atlantic by Mediterranean powers, the schism in Christianity, and--perhaps above all--the centuries long construction of a pan-European identity providing fertile ground for white supremacist ideology to grow.

Ch 1

The prelude to apocalypse starts in the Muslim ruled Iberian Peninsula (711-1492). This was an early point of contact and conflict between Europeans and the Islamic world. Horne describes the ubiquity of slavery in the area, emphasizing its non-racialist character and notes the centrality of Iberia in medieval commerce as free labor, displaced people, merchants, and gold flowed between Europe and "an Africa which had yet to be devastated."

An important thread in this book is how joint-European ventures against a common enemy created a shared identity which would one day morph into a concept of "whiteness". Examples include the 11th century Crusades or the 15th century Vatican-supported Reconquista.

Horne then covers the "ascendency of deadly martial tools" through military innovation due to the peculiar conditions of European society (compactness/contiguity of territory and constant warfare) which would become indispensable in its colonial project: the widespread use of cannons by the mid-14th century, invention of shoulder arms and handheld weapons in the next, and even the use of biological warfare like in the Tartar invasion of Genoa in which victims of the black death were catapulted over the city walls to spread disease.

The chapter ends by exploring the evolution of the African slave trade where Horne locates the 1453 fall of Constantinople as a turning point. Prior to then, the Mediterranean slave trade was characterized by an "extraordinary diversity" but afterward, with Venice's eastern slave trade blocked, there was a "drop in the number of Slavic and other European slaves...and, concomitantly, an increasing number of Africans."

CH2

Here, the book focuses on the Spanish-Ottoman conflicts of the 1500s which would allow England to belatedly enter the colonial system (after Spain, Portugal, France, and even the Dutch). Since slavery as such was nothing new and the Americas provided a new source of free labor after the 1453 disruption, there was already a thriving Atlantic slave trade by the 1520s (though nothing approaching what it would become). Indigenous people were the first to be enslaved by colonizers like Columbus, De Soto, and Ponce de Leon though African slaves had been brought to the American continent by at least 1503.

One of Horne's main arguments becomes clear in his discussion of the Reformation in this chapter: for European society in this time Religion was the main "social marker" and conditioned the shape of colonial conflicts and the pattern of slavery... Especially for Catholic Spain, at the time far and away the most important colonial power. This would change when protestant England deployed the nascent identity of whiteness in service of its colonial aims--a much more effective strategy for expanding colonialism's base and grounding a permanent slave regime.

A big part of the chapter is devoted to explaining the conflicts and preoccupations of the main colonial powers which allowed England the breathing space for its coming ascent. Spain was the spearhead in Europe's fight against the Ottoman Empire as it fought directly with it in North Africa or indirectly against Turkish backed pirates along the Barbary Coast. Spain was also contending with black and indigenous resistance in the Americas threatening the viability of permanent settlements in Cuba and the Yucatan. Portugal was mired in a proxy war against the Ottomans in the Horn of Africa while France was getting kicked around by the Habsburgs.

Of course England was not free of conflict though, there, its constant warring with Irish and Scottish elements lead to the innovation and adoption of new military tech like the matchlock arquebus and breech-loading handguns.

CH3

This chapter's focus is on the extermination of the American indigenous population--one-half of the "apocalypse" story Horne aims to give the background to. Starting off in the 1540s--50 years now after the beginning of the American colonial project--Horne covers some conflicts representative of Europe's efforts to depopulate the continent (eg. Mixton's War, the campaign of Hernando de Soto). Horne never presents this as a straightforward unstoppable process of annihilation and details the resistance movements and revolts that made the colonial project a precarious one. The general trend however, was elimination of the indigenous and importation of Africans.

These demographic changes threatened Spanish colonizers whose rigid sectarianism narrowed the base of colonialism (no Jews, Moors, Protestants, newly converted, etc could partake). Horne convincingly argues this was entirely inappropriate for the new era of conquest which required a broad coalition for the liquidation of native peoples and mass enslavement of Africans. The more effective strategy of basing imperialism on skin color would be taken up by England and the US afterward.

At this point in the historical narrative (1530s-1550s) England had begun dipping its toes in the colonial project with explorations of Newfoundland, The Caribbean, and Brazil though never for permanent settlement. Meanwhile, old guard commercial powers like Venice, Antwerp, and Genoa were in decline allowing English merchant/investors like Towerson, York, Barne, etc to capitalize on the slave trade with ventures to West Africa.

CH4

This chapter is about the early attempts by the Spanish to establish permanent settlements in North America, mostly Florida. The incentives for such a settlement sprung mainly from defensive considerations to preempt the French or Portuguese doing the same; as a base of operations to protect Caribbean shipping routes from piracy; and as a way station for returning expeditions facing treacherous waters, erratic weather, and other natural hazards.

As we enter the mid-1500s we see the emerging color-based identity take form: religious justification for enslaving Africans in particular (see Curse of Ham) and the designation "Negro" enters the vernacular. Also by the 1560s England is making more forays into the "New World" through the slave trade involvement of John Hawkins, Francis Drake, William Chester, and others. Though this is all still limited mostly to pirating in the Caribbean.

CH5

Marks a number of turning points on the road to England's rise in the 1570s. For one, this is when England begins to flourish under Queen Elizabeth, not least because the looting of Catholic monestaries after Henry VIII's split with the Vatican helped offset the Exchequer's huge debts. Francis Drake's successful harassment of Spanish shipping, Dutch challenge to Spain's colonial hegemony, and an epochal Ottoman defeat at Lepanto all also contributed to England's good fortunes. The latter point, Horne incorporates into the story of "whiteness" since all of Christian Europe seemed struck by "Lepanto fever" which emboldened and bonded them.

The defeat of the Ottomans in 1571 is particularly important in the apocalypse narrative since "what occurred post-Lepanto was that the momentum deployed to combat Muslims was transferred with added intensification to Africa and the Americas..." England in particular deftly made deals with Portugal and Morocco to gain access to West and North Africa while Spain was bogged down in crisis after crisis in its overextended colonies across the Atlantic.

The problems of "marauding indigenes, angry Africans, scheming Frenchmen, and lurking Englishmen" would continue to dog Spain and inform its colonial policy.

CH6

In this chapter Spain begins its decline initiated by the defeat of its armada in 1588. Spain's continental and colonial setbacks gave England space to start its settlement project at Roanoke in the 1580s where it enjoyed a "2nd mover's advantage", taking over territory already cleared by its competitors.

Not that England was without its own problems--France's "auld alliance" with Scotland threatened Queen Elizabeth’s rule with invasion and assassination conspiracies. In this context many would-be colonists cut their teeth brutalizing Scotts to secure English control over its northern neighbor. Likewise with Ireland.

Two more important notes about this chapter...Horne explains the coeval development of the English colonial system and the social formations characteristic of capitalism such as the joint stock company and the insurance market (underwriting shipped cargo). And secondly, he describes the important relations England developed with Sephardic merchants and networks of the Jewish Diaspora more generally in integrating England in world markets. This relationship between commerce, trade, and Judaism is a complicated one but tied to their constant forced removal from one place to another (eg from the Iberian to the Netherlands where the Dutch were entering a veritable Golden Age of commerce and culture). England enjoyed an absolute asset in its relations with Jews and other non-Christians, such as Moroccans and even Turks. An asset ever out of reach for the rigidly sectarian Spanish crown which "extruded not only Moors but the Jews also" from its financing sources--"a policy inimical to a viable colonialism."

CH7

The situation in Spanish Florida continued to deteriorate as more and more Africans were needed to fortify and reinforce Spaniards under constant indigenous attack. Spanish settlements in current-day New Mexico and Arizona were likewise jeopardized by resistant Native Americans. The beleaguered Spanish authorities had to weigh tradeoffs as they decided where scarce reserves of labor could be transferred with maximum effect.

Meanwhile England was cutting deals with more non-Christian powers resulting in an Anglo-Dutch-Persian coalition that challenged Madrid in such "crucial sites as Chile, Mexico, and the Philippines." The chapter ends on the apocalypse beginning in earnest now in Africa with the decline of the Songhay Empire (a boon to Morocco and, by extension, its English ally) as well as the destruction in Congo and Angola.

CH8

In the last chapter we finally arrive at the first permanent English settlement in North America, Jamestown, 100 years after Spain's first arrival to the continent. From its inception, English colonialism was coextensive with English enslavement of Africans as many of the first settlers and investors of the Virginia Company were intimately tied to the West African slave trade (Raleigh, Sandys, Rich).

A major feature distinguishing England from its Spanish competitor was its willingness to tolerate dissident religious followers to partake in the plundering of the Americas and Africa. For example, Catholics played a leading role in Protestant England's settlement of the middle colonies like Maryland. This, of course, was not a progressive feature but a pragmatic one. By eschewing religious identity for a general European one and, eventually, a racialist one (which would be adopted by England's republican successor The US), England was able to mobilize a broader base for its colonial project than its Spanish predecessor.

[Connor Leavitt · Rating 4 out of 5]

Gerald Horne traces the formative events of European “New World” colonialism. The primary directions of analysis are the power conflicts between jockeying imperial powers (mainly England versus Spain), the construction of “whiteness” or “pan-Europeanism,” and the glaring contradiction at the heart of slavery and settler-colonialism– the potentially radical agency and solidarity of enslaved and oppressed peoples.

Horne’s work is exhaustive, but it does verge on repetitive and unfocused. He’s at his best when he focuses on slave resistance and draws a historiography of revolts that build on each other and develop his major points on political economy (which aren’t so often clearly stated, you have to glean these points from the erratic info dumps that punctuate seemingly disparate points in history). Otherwise, Horne’s writing is disorganized, jumping between different dates and locales with dizzying speed. It’s often hard to relate what Horne is saying together, to make the connections he’s striving for. At times it appears that Horne overstates the significance of a cherry-picked event in order to strain towards his primary focus-- that is, the construction of "whiteness" during its formative period leading up to 1619. There's nothing disagreeable in Horne's focuses and directions of analysis, his major theses are nigh unimpeachable. Only his method is subject to question...it's just a bit messy.

[Cade · Rating 5 out of 5]

I must re-read this. I listened to it on tape and it took me a very long time and I couldn’t pay it enough attention to it. I will read the physical copy. Either way very very good. Gerald Horne is a genius.

[Jordan · Rating 4 out of 5]

An alternate title for this might’ve been “The Spanish Fumble” as it essentially chronicles how Spain fumbled the greatest bag in history by adhering to religious purism over racial “whiteness” during the early colonial period. I would’ve liked to learn more about the inner workings of Indigenous American and African politics in this period that helped establish those groups’ vulnerability to settler colonialism and slavery. We get a little bit of it, but mostly just in reference to American/African interactions with other empires (including Ottomans and Moroccans, interestingly). Nevertheless, it’s a great history of the development of “whiteness” and thus race as we know it. Horne does an excellent job keeping it brief and to the point, too.

[Nick · Rating 5 out of 5]

Easily one of the best reads RE: early modern colonisation & the development of the modern world order I’ve ever read. Horne has an unmatched grip of the religious, political and cultural dynamics at play in the decline of the Spanish Empire & the rise of London. His contribution of “whiteness” to the historiography is groundbreaking, and allows for a much greater, more detailed examination of the foundation of the United States & white supremacy. A must read

[JRT · Rating 4 out of 5]

In his latest book, the brilliant and prolific historian Gerald Horne documents the rise of settler colonialism, white supremacy, enslavement, and capitalism, during the "long 15th Century" (1492-1607). Horne traces the rise of "whiteness" as a reaction to the threat imposed by Muslim conquerors in North African and the Mediterranean--and later--the severe resistance from Africans and Indigenes to the colonial endeavors of the many European powers. Particularly, Horne stresses that Spanish colonialism ultimately faltered because Spain failed to timely and sufficiently replace its strict religious order with the emerging racial one. This failure prevented them from organizing a "Pan European" wall against African and Indigenous resistance to enslavement and dispossession. Horne details how England was ultimately able to take the place of Spain as the dominant colonizer in the New World by taking advantage of the century-long skirmishes and wars between the Spanish colonizers and the rebellious Africans and Indigenes.

[Mason Wyss · Rating 2 out of 5]

If Gerald Horne titled his book in the same fashion as Jared Diamond's Guns, Germs, and Steel, then it would be titled I think Guns, Whiteness, and Capitalism. This captures three of my biggest criticisms of the book.

First, the book mentions capitalism a lot, but it is never defined and never explaines how the events of the Sixteenth Century contributed to its development besides small snippets here and there. The bigger picture and in-depth how is quite blurry.

Second, Horne gives short shrift to the role of germs in the "Apocalypse" of settler colonialism. He says himself that the Aztec and Inca empires lost 90% of their populations by 1620 alone, a year before Cortes conquered Tenochtitlan. The data I've seen suggests that the plagues that swept across the New World combined formed one of the greatest tragedies in human history, but Horne basically never brings it up. I suspect this is because it wasn't done fully intentionally, and so weakens the argument that Europeans intentionally committed genocide against native nations. I happen to disagree with this if it is the reason, the argument for genocide is still rather strong regardless of if the vast majority of initial deaths were unintentional.

Third, Horne overstates his case as it relates to religious liberty in the US. He makes it seem as if freedom of religion exists only to sew together different nationalities of white peoples into a common race. I think this unduly discounts the revolutionary nature of religious freedom and the influences of freedom of conscience during the English Civil Wars and of the Enlightenment on the Founders. Certainly it helped stitch European peoples into one single people, but that’s not the whole story.

Besides there points, I found it terribly boring and unhelpful for understanding the modern world or how to change it. It's cool that Horne studied the geopolitics of settler colonialism so closely, and I can see why I should care about some geopolitical developments like Spain choosing to colonize the New World because the Ottomans were too strong in the Mediterranean. But in the main, there was a lot written about the geopolitics and religious conflicts which was of no interest and not well tied into the main thesis.

[JC · Rating 4 out of 5]

Honestly the long sixteenth century sounds wild. This book was sort of all over the place, which I like. It’s the way I personally like to write. But I definitely understand why some people thought it was very hard to follow. I still don’t have a clear sense of the book’s argument, but there were still a lot of fascinating things.

One paragraph in particular was a bit weird to me. Basically the one where Horne quotes Charles Chapman at length, implying that Chinese voyagers had possibly visited western coastal areas of the North American continent, without any comment or contextualization:

“A powerful, warm ocean current, argues Charles Chapman, “called the Black Stream or Japan Current,” propelled some from Asia to the east bank of the Pacific. Even in the twentieth century, he declares, “among the Indians” there were “many traditions of recognizably Chinese origin and also linguistic affinities, notably so in the Puget Sound.” Further, “Aztecs, Mayas and Incas show a marked similarity to … the Chinese.” Thus, “In the course of excavations ancient Chinese implements and coins have been found” as “regular trade existed between China and California in the first century of the Christian era.” In contrast, by 1542 Portuguese had arrived in Japan, leading to a concerted effort to repel these invaders, leading ultimately to barring such foreigners until the United States shattered the barriers in the 1850s.”

You better believe I went down a conspiracy rabbit hole reading about Fusang, Hwui Shan, and weird proto-Wiccan pagans like time Leland who was at the Sorbonne in 1848 and joined the revolutionary barricades at the time, Orientalists like De Guignes, Edward P. Vining’s 800-page book entitled “An Inglorious Columbus: Evidence that Hui Shan and a Party of Buddhist Monks from Afghanistan Discovered America in the Fifth Century A.D” (why are people so obsessed with who 'discovered' the Americas lol) and this strange 1989 article published by the Royal BC Museum (which basically suggests that the Song Dynasty Chinese coins found in abandoned Indigenous sites either arrived after 'European contact', made their way very indirectly through long chains of trade, but never really did rule out early Chinese contact with Indigenous nations in the Americas, though I feel dumb talking about stuff like this in public lol).

There were a lot of other fascinating things in Horne's book: stuff on Black and Indigenous uprisings, interesting religious history, details of how constructions of race and whiteness developed historically over time, how this was related to the development of capitalism, and how race came to overshadow other categories like religion. These are some excerpts I found interesting for various reasons:

“In undermining existing beliefs, Protestants set the stage for the rise of others: racism, not least, a point that Ambassador Young could have mentioned in 1977. In short, the radical decentralization of Protestantism, as opposed to the hierarchical centralization of Catholicism, provided fertile soil for the rise of racism and other “faiths.” Besides, as besieged underdogs in the midst of religious wars, Protestants were poised to make overtures to the Jewish community and Islam alike, as a matter of survival if nothing else but contrary to past praxis,97 and, ultimately, Protestants and Catholics, then the Jewish, were rebranded as “white” republicans, curbing murderous interreligious conflict and ushering in an era of racialized conflict, victimizing Africans and indigenes alike.”

This one mentions Mexico City (which I will be visiting soon for the first time!!) as one of the main nodes of the so-called ‘New World’ which I find very interesting:

“In 1570, “there were an estimated 10 million indigenes, 250,000 Africans—“mulattos” or “mestizos”—and 140,000 “Europeans” in Iberian America. That first figure fell sharply in succeeding years, while that of Africans continued to rise relative to that of Europeans. By 1576 there were reportedly more Africans than colonizers in the important node that was Mexico City. Part of Madrid’s problem was overweening ambition; more Spaniards reached Manila in 1580 than any other year of the sixteenth century, and it was near then that the grasping power began dreamily to contemplate an invasion of China, to then be followed by thrusts into India, Cochin China (or Vietnam), Siam, the Moluccas, Borneo, and Sumatra.”

This is one on St. Augustine in Florida (according to Horne “early on “Florida” could mean the vast territory stretching to today’s Hudson Bay, and this was more an indicator of the grandness of the vision for the peninsula.”):

“AS THE TIME APPROACHED TO colonize what became St. Augustine in 1565, the monarch in Madrid was told that “there are many Negroes, mulattoes and people of evil inclination in the islands of Santo Domingo, Puerto Rico, Cuba, and others nearby. In each of these islands,” said conquistador Pedro Menendez de Aviles disconsolately, “there are more than thirty of them to each Christian. It is a land where this generation multiplies rapidly,” and, besides, “in possession of the French” most notably, “all of these slaves will be set free,” since “to enjoy this freedom, the Negroes will help them against their own masters and rulers, for them to take over the land. It will be a very easy thing to do with the help of the Negroes.”54 This was perceptive, and combined with Madrid’s self-defeating religious sectarianism, which hindered the necessity to build, à la London, a “whiteness” project, crossing theological borders, left few alternatives beyond seeking to co-opt Africans, creating a “Free African” population that could be armed, an endangering process that certain settlers may have deemed to be a cure worse than the illness.

This one is about the shift taking place from religious primacy to racial primacy:

“This was part and parcel of the elongated process whereby religion was supplanted by “race” as the animating axis of society, which reached its zenith in the Americas, especially Protestant-dominated North America. For as the late doyen of historians Herbert Bolton once averred, “In the English colonies the only good Indians were dead Indians.”55 But this induced morbidity did not occur to a similar degree in, for example, French settlements in North America. After all, London coveted the land of indigenes for settlement, while Paris was more intrigued by the trade in furs and a military alliance with the indigenes against other European powers such as London. Thus, says the scholar W. J. Eccles, Perfidious Albion “had to displace—that is destroy—the Indians” and France was more interested in seeking to “preserve them, in order to achieve their aims.”56 ”

Some interesting religions history the preceding what Horne calls the project of “whiteness”:

“Western Europe’s contestation with the Ottomans was a precondition of the rise of plundering of the Americas and Africa. The Iberians pirouetted deftly from the directive of Pope Nicholas V in 1452 sanctifying Lisbon’s praxis of selling into slavery all “heathens” and “’Foes of Christ’”—principally Moslems—to the broader application in the Americas.65 This fifteenth-century edict was an extension of the Crusades.66 That is, a Pan-European Christian campaign against Islam extended to a campaign against non-European/non-Christians (especially in the Americas and Africa); arguably, this Pan-European initiative was a prelude to the rise of the similarly devastating “whiteness” project. Thus, in fifteenth-century Valencia, Spain, captors sought to misrepresent what amounted to Senegalese and Gambians (West Africans) as Moors (North Africans)—religious-cum-political antagonists—so as to enslave them consistent with theological mores.67”

“…shortly thereafter more homes were subjected to arson because of upset with the unwillingness of Africans to accept one-sided bargains with those described as “Christian”—not “white,” as they were to be termed subsequently. Theology was busily adapting to the renewed order of conquest, in that ransacking and laying waste was seen as executing the will of God, not unlike “Israelies [sic] entering Canaan.”80 As suggested earlier, the maunderings of Machiavelli attained a reenergized popularity in London in the 1580s.81”

Anti-Semitism in the Americas (before they became religious primacy lost steam, and they were welcomed into the increasingly important racial category of white):

“Typically, members of the Jewish community were formally excluded from those dispatched to Florida in 1565 but as so often happened, it was possible that they were aboard when vessels docked, as was the case potentially with Columbus and Ponce de León.96 There was evidence of the presence of Jewish merchants in Panama as early as 1550.97 As early as 1528, Hernando Alsono was depicted as the “first Jew burned at the stake in the North American continent,” Mexico City in this instance. By 1783 Madrid sought “not to imprison Jews or to sequester their property,” but by then it was probably too late to reverse the import of the Inquisition which as early as 1502, if not before, sought to “prohibit the entry of Moors or Jews into the New World.””

Indigenous resistance to Catholicism:

“By 1600, piously and hypocritically, confirmation was made of that which was obvious: indigenes were highly resistant to the theology of Catholicism, which was a rationale for either abandoning the peninsula altogether, or ridding the peninsula of unbelievers and their purported treacheries.51 Making it plain, one twentieth-century historian spat out angrily that the “Indian revolt of the Guale was a desperate attempt to wipe out the Christian culture that had just taken root.” In response, the attempt was made to wipe out the Guale populace and—minimally—their culture.”

The emergence of capitalism as the new religion of the Americas:

“Part of what was occurring was what appeared to be not just a degrading of Catholicism but religion itself. “People learned to devalue sacred properties and objects,” says Dan O’Sullivan, facilitating the shipping of so much materiel to Ottoman Turkey. “The livery men whose cushions were made of altar cloths,” he says, and the “woman whose crystal perfume bottle once held the finger bone of a saint, the carpenter who made his living making and dismantling sacred objects, the yeoman whose doorstep had been an altar, and all the families whose fortunes were improved by the dissolutions had lost their fear of the sacred,” which did not bode well for religion generally, not just Catholicism, a trend that spurred the rise of a kind of neo-religion: capitalism. Catholicism at the pinnacle, in any case, was seen as a repository of wealth, rather than religious comfort, which helped to create a void then filled by settler colonialism driven by the emerging “race” construction and the devaluing and revaluing of Africans, and attendant commerce. Catholicism could both absorb and administer blows. It was not just the Lutherans, it was also the Calvinist Protestants, who often disdained monarchs—and monks—who were thought worthy of liquidation. Certain Catholics were starting to believe that unless Calvinists were liquidated, there could be no peace, especially in France. This was at odds with the opposing idea that real security meant the utter devastation of the Vatican.”

[Nick H · Rating 2 out of 5]

It has a lot of information, but it’s not very compellingly presented- at least not in my opinion. I found it incredibly difficult to keep my focus while reading this, due largely to narrator Quinn’s strange inflections and cadence. I hate to be negative about a narrator because I know how much goes into it, but I just couldn’t get on the same wavelength with this book. It’s about a really important subject, and I was excited to read it because I’ve been trying to find good sources of information about this aspect of history lately. I’ll look elsewhere and maybe read this again later. [LIBRARY AUDIOBOOK]

たくさん情報けどちょっとつまらない。大切話題けどこの本があまり好きじゃなかった

[Scott Neigh]

Historical scholarship. A sweeping history of the long sixteenth century, from the first voyage of Columbus in 1492 to the establishment of the first permanent English-speaking settlement in North America in 1607. Though it was really in the seventeenth century that it became clear that all of these interlinked phenomena would become the defining features of the historical trajectory that we are still on today, the long sixteenth century lay the groundwork for what slavery, white supremacy, settler colonialism, and capitalism would later become.

My reading experience with this book was a little peculiar. Partly, that's on me – I didn't really know much about the time period, and this book covers a lot of ground quite quickly, so there were sometimes allusions to events and people and so on that I couldn't keep up with. But the writing is also a bit strange, in that the author tends to repeat core ideas a lot in a way that goes way beyond the judicious repetition you expect in careful scholarship, and even specific facts and phrases keep recurring in a way that feels odd. (Can any book bear multiple references to France as "the hexagonal kingdom", for instance? This one certainly tried!) And I couldn't always determine what was about my reading and what was about the writing, but I wasn't always able to follow the logic of its movements across time and space.

All of that said, it is fascinating history and, I think, important analysis. I won't try to summarize it all, but one key theme is how the events of this century set the stage for the shift in the balance of world power from Spain to England. There were lots of elements to this, including the ways in which conflict with Protestant and Muslim nations (plus sometimes France) in the east and Indigenous and enslaved African resistance in the west depleted Spain and allowed England, as a relative latecomer to the imperial game in the so-called New World, to swoop in as opportunity presented. But one of the most important is how Spain remained committed to an approach to empire that pivoted around religion, such that it excluded (if imperfectly) Protestant and Jewish people from its settlements and alliances, thus weakening it, whereas differences in England's circumstance meant it was better positioned to move forward with the emerging pan-European, ecumenical, inter-faith, and inter-ethnic solidarity that is whiteness/white supremacy, which ultimately proved to be a more powerful basis for settler colonialism and empire than Catholicism.

I was also interested to learn about the role that conflict with the Ottomans played in this moment. Christian Europe was losing to them pretty consistently for much of the sixteenth century, which gave urgency to early European efforts to drain whatever resources it could from the New World. As well, the book argues that whiteness was not only a more apt technology for a settler colonial extractive empire than religion, but that Christian anti-Islamic militancy – its fervour and violence, and the form that it took through the Crusades – was itself part of what was transmuted into whiteness.

There were other interesting bits and pieces too...things like the way that the constant warfare within Europe itself in this era drove the development of weapons technology, which was of course important in how things played out as Europe pointed its violent tendencies at the rest of the world. I also hadn't really appreciated before the way that slavery was transformed in this era – it was still, at the beginning of the sixteenth century, a pretty multi-directional practice, with European Christians enslaving Muslims and vice versa over the course of their centuries of reciprocal warfare. The tight and violently racialized association of slavery with African-descended people only emerged as European states became dependent on maximizing accumulation from the pillaging of the New World, and mass kidnapping from Africa was the way they decided to do it (which of course also corresponded with race displacing religion as the dominant sense of "we" in Europe). I also really appreciated the book's copious attention to resistance, particularly by African and Indigenous North American people.

Anyway...a bit of a weird book in some ways, but also an interesting and important one.

[Andy Edwards · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was truly great, well-arranged and well-supported by thorough research. And in addition, tied that in well with referenced to more well known stories and historical waypoints that could help someone with scant knowledge of pre-18th century conquest and slave trade in placing all of this new information within their already existing schema of New World settlement.

To the foremost criticism made in the popular 3-star reviews re: how this reads and difficulty following the train of thought: none of that is an issue if you use the Audiobook!

It follows a perfectly natural, engaging, and immersive narrative which better resembles a movie plot or complex multi-stage theater production than the very linear, one foot in front of the other histories that many less literary researchers often string together.

Once you are able to hear Horne's writing style as a endeavor to render these facts thematically rather than in contiguous Cartesian or linear sections, it becomes very easy to keep pace with and the organization much more intuitive.

As far as what was displayed, the things I personally found most surprising from the information were: A) the complex and alternating candidates for enslavement around the Mediterranean throughout this time period, and with that B) the very complicating role of North Africa (with precious little about the Barbary coast, but a great deal about Morocco) in Spain's potential paths to consolidation and C) the even greater role of spoiler played by France on the lower East/Florida coast along with those different maroon and indigenous groups that presumably preceded the Black Seminole alliance.

These are extremely important retellings because many of those patterns fit what we know of past power reversals in antiquity, can help us understand more recent revolts and multiethnic/power minority realignments, and of course point to how post-colonial uprisings that are yet to come might fail or succeed in upending hegemonic logics at various scales.

[Richard Thompson · Rating 3 out of 5]

The roots of slavery go deep in European civilization, and this book shows how slavery was widely practiced in the New World long before 1619. Mr. Horne acknowledges that the black/white racism of slavery only came along toward the end of the period under study, but there were already plenty of black slaves and well-developed plantation and mining economies that depended on slavery to work. There was endless jockeying for power, wealth and position between the European powers, and the slaves and indigenous people caught in the mill wheels of European power politics were ground to dust in large numbers. In some ways the English were the worst. The Spanish at least saw the indigenous people as labor, whereas the English saw them as being in the way. The settler colonialism of the English seems more benign to us than the extractive and exploitative colonialism of the Spanish, but for the people who bore the brunt of it, the English were no better. Before reading this book, I had not appreciated how much the defeat of the Spanish Armada was the launching point for England's ascendancy as an economic and colonial power. Before that the English were preoccupied by their troubles at home with their civil wars, religious issues and endless struggles to subdue the Scots and Irish and were second rate players on the international scene. But once they came into their own, they were as bad or worse than any of their rivals. The label "Perfidious Albion" was more than name calling by the enemies of England.

[Mike · Rating 4 out of 5]

In many ways this is a great book. I wish I had the depth and breadth of historical knowledge that Horne has. He is obviously an extremely hard-working man as the notes indicate the depth of his research into archives around the world from the long 16th century.

Horne brings out the difference between the religious focus of the Spanish colonial conquest and racial focus of the English colonial conquest. In doing so, he demonstrates how we have arrived at the present moment in the US. We also learn the ways in which a small island kingdom was able to surpass Spain, the Habsburgs, France, and others to become the most powerful empire in the world by forming diplomatic and trading relationships with both Ottoman Turks and Moroccan Muslims, unlike most European powers of the time, by accepting Jews and Conversos into London and the accompanying banking and trade connections, by using Catholic Irish and Scots as settler colonizers in America, and by piracy.

The one downside of this book is that it appears to have been hastily written. I've read other books by Horne and he is an excellent writer; however, this book seems to get overwhelmed by information that, at times, causes a bit of disorganization and some wading through to get to the point. A persistent reader will benefit from a tremendous gain of knowledge and insight.

[Ibrahim · Rating 4 out of 5]

The book explored the initial rise of spanish colonialism as tge preeminent colonizing force and its subsequent displacement by the British. It links the reconquista, and the resulting expulsion/forced conversion of muslims and sephardic jews from iberia, and how it was these communities which intially provided the bridge for spanish and Portuguese colonialism in Africa and in parts of America. It links the fall of the spanish to indigenous resistance, the climactic cooling of the 14th century, the dutch revolt and the religious conflicts between protestants and catholics (spain being standard bearer for catholicism). The rise of Britain by utilizing a moroccan and ottoman alliance against the british and preying on distracted spanish, and eventually and most convincingly through the origination of whiteness as a way to sublimate european religious conflict and direct that vicious energy outwards in the goal of profit and colonization was very well laid out. Overall, the book gives a good overview of how racism or racialism pre-existed capitalism in europe, but it was the advent of capitalism along with the discovery of the americas which supercharged it into creating whiteness and racism as we know it.

[Claire · Rating 4 out of 5]

The main argument of the book is that 'whiteness' replaced religion in classifying enslaved and replaced people and was essential to England's dominance over Spain in the US. Now I had read that point in summary many times,but this book lays it out in detail throughout the 16th century. Occasionally referenced is the history of the beginnings of capitalism.

For someone like me who has studied history, mostly US, briefly and in its Anglo version, there was a lot to learn. A focus on the New England colonies was replaced with emphasis on Spanish colonization and to a lesser extent, French. And that colonization's extent beyond North America to South America, though there was more detail on the Caribbean colonies and Mexico than the southern ones. So for me it was easy to get lost in the detail. The argument read much easier when discussing areas with which I was familiar. There were helps to the novice in the topic though, with references to contemporary names of territories discussed. I could have used more of these.

Definitely a book worth reading, and I will be seeking others by this author.

[Joe · Rating 5 out of 5]

Constellates the history of the early (heinous) settlement of the Caribbean and the Americas. Recasts the foundation of what would become the United States in radically different terms. By the seventeenth century in what would become the United Sates "these settlers were uniting across class and even religious lines. Witness the settlement in what was called Maryland where Catholics were playing a leading role in this overall Protestant concern in one of the most profound rebrandings in global history, that is, the consolidation of 'whiteness.' This was a militarized 'identity politics' that involved land, enslaved labor, and a passel of 'rights' as combat pay for those willing to bludgeon indigenes and batter Africans" (198)

"Essentially, London had the colonial wisdom to export Catholics and other presumed dissidents to settlements, where they were relabeled as 'white,' with many soaring to fame, fortune and prosperous careers as indigenous propagandists for the purported liberty delivered by republicanism" (202).

Other gems:
East India Company as "Exxon with guns." / "London's policy of fighting Madrid to the last Dutchman" (199)

[Josh · Rating 4 out of 5]

Horne’s main arguments regard the decline of Spain and its religious based brand of settler colonialism, and its replacement by England as the new world power.
Spain, the top Catholic power, did religious vetting on its settlers, not accepting the services of Protestants Jews or Muslims. England on the other hand, had far less scruples in general and pursued a strategy of forging a “white“ identity in opposition to enslaved Africans and hostile Native Americans. Instead of viewing settlers as Flemish, English, Irish, welsh, portuguese, etc, the need for boots on the ground in the “new world” created the category of “white” by necessity.
As we know, England’s brand of settler colonialism was far more effective in conquering North America and accumulating capital. In addition to this religion vs race dynamic, another aspect in the rise of England was its benefit of being the late blooming colonial power compared to Spain. Spanish soldiers and settlers waged war against indigenous populations throughout the 1500s, weakening both in the long run and allowing England and its descendants (USA) to move in and eventually sweep both away.

[David · Rating 3 out of 5]

Gerald Horne's book is most interesting when it connects the racial attitudes and economic practices of Europeans in the Americas to their antecedents in Europe. Oftentimes, these two worlds are treated as too separate, as though, for example, the wars of the Protestant Reformation had nothing to do with the way their survivors treated native peoples in the Americas.

I think Horne struggles with one of the fundamental tasks of history - delineating continuities and changes. Horne draws too straight a line, I think, between the actions of Europeans in the 1500s and white Americans in subsequent centuries. While obviously the history of this country shapes its present, it doesn't determine it. 21st century white supremacy is not the same as white supremacy in the 16th century - while they share certain features, their contours and particularities are different, and Horne's repeated elisions of these differences undercuts the book's analysis.

[Georgie Melrose · Rating 4 out of 5]

More of a 3.5, rounded up because I want more people to read this

This was informative and specific. I always have a bit of a bone to pick when the scope/order is not clearly outlined. With such a short book trying to cover so much, it was always going to need to jump around. The thesis was the most interesting element. I think directly connecting pan-europeanism colonial efforts to the forming of the concept of whiteness is compelling. Furthermore, I think it's important to realize how messy and chaotic the transition from religious division was (and still remains), and Horne makes that very clear.

However -- and it's possible I wasn't reading carefully enough -- I do wish the argument had been a bit more concise. This was great history, but not as persuasive as it could have been. Horne created the image but didn't necessarily connect all the dots in my opinion.

[Jason Flynn · Rating 5 out of 5]

This along with Horne's other work on Settler Colonialism has been an absolutely titanic contribution to popular histriography. The book can be hard to read in long stints because so much of the content (genocide, slavery) is incredibly horrific. But, Horne provides globe-spanning insight into the formation of "whiteness," imperial alliances, settler-states, and modern capitalism that don't depict these structures as essential, immutable, or inevitable. That framing feels important as so many people take on the work of building a new world in which these structures are torn down, and the atrocities the perpetuate are ended.

[Max Booher · Rating 4 out of 5]

I find it oddly reassuring (while nevertheless disgusting) that human chattel slavery existed among humans — even in the semi-modern era of mass colonialism — long before my odious American ancestors refined the project to an exquisite level.

“…in the prelude to 1492, enslavement was an established fact in Europe and Europeans had been enslaving Africans — and others — for decades. With 1492, this heinous process was extended to the Americas and deepened in Africa. However, the Spanish, the first movers, and taking religious seriously, made the fateful decision(admittedly under pressure) to develop a Free Negro population in the Americas, not even taking the precaution of depriving them of arms. Like an adroit chess grandmaster, London countered eventually by seeking to tighten the enslavement noose around the necks of Africans, while incorporating other Europeans into the favored category of “whiteness,” or Pan-Europeanism — up to and including, admittedly with bumpiness, the persecuted Jewish minority — which proved to be the winning ticket in the valuable sweepstakes of settler colonialism.” Page 52-53

[Mark]

A great book that provides a much-needed history of a not much covered period of Mexican and American history, just after the Conquest continuing for 100 years.
Give great information concerning the reasons for the massive shifts of populations during the early Spanish and British colonial periods and the reasons for the broad use of slavery to support their economic expansion.

[Flora R. · Rating 5 out of 5]

A fascinating review of an often under examined (in normal pop history circles) period of time through a lens usually avoided until the 18th or 19th century.

I picked this up on a whim after reading a review of the authors latest work shared by a person I respect, so I think I’ll be reading more!

[Sapna Kumar · Rating 5 out of 5]

An essential read to understand the real history of the settling of the Americas. It's definitely scholarly though, and I found myself looking up words like "erstwhile," "fomenting," "flotilla," and more. Grab your dictionary and enjoy!

[Dave Seibert · Rating 4 out of 5]

In-depth and interesting

Overall a good book, especially those interested in history and in particular the late 16th early 17th centuries. Wish the author would have gone further but well done nonetheless.

[Steve · Rating 4 out of 5]

Horne basically makes the argument that racism grew out of religious intolerance in the long 16th century, basically 1492 until 1607. He casts London and the English as the true demons in the picture.

[Ryan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Not only a provocative account of the 1600s but also a lyrical and entertaining read backed up with ample evidence. I found it amusing that Portugal's downfall for the following 300 years can be traced to King Sebastian Leroy Jenkinsing himself in Morocco.