Morton contended, as had White, that Europeans, Asians, and Africans were separate species, and Europeans were clearly the superior beings. That characterization was embraced by those in antebellum America who were invested in enslaving kidnapped Africans and in “civilizing” or exterminating Native American tribes. If those groups were not actually human, or at least not as human as whites, there was no need to feel guilty about the atrocities visited on them and no moral threat to an American economy built on the slave labor of black people, who were bought and sold like property for almost
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