1619, a more inclusive and egalitarian society was still possible, if not probable. It was the decisions and actions of Puritan thinkers and leaders that throttled it. What’s more, that possibility was choked off not only by the enslavement of kidnapped Africans, but also by warfare with native peoples—and their French Catholic allies. “Whiteness” was defined not only in opposition to “blackness” but also to “redness,” and not only in terms of color but also in terms of religion: Protestant vs. Catholic and Christian vs. “heathen.”
