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Monday, June 21, 2021

European colonization of the Americas

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

European political map of the Americas in 1794
 
American Discovery Viewed by Native Americans (Thomas Hart Benton, 1922). European discovery and colonization had disastrous effects on the indigenous peoples of the Americas and their societies.

Although the Norse had explored and colonized northeastern North America c. 1000 CE, a later and more well known wave of European colonization of the Americas took place in the Americas between about 1500 CE and 1800 CE, during the Age of Exploration. During this time period, several European empires—primarily Spain, Portugal, Britain, and France—began to explore and claim the natural resources and human capital of the Americas resulting in the disestablishment of some Indigenous Nations, and the establishment of several settler-colonial states. Some formerly European settler colonies—including New Mexico, Alaska, the Prairies/northern Great Plains, and the "Northwest Territories" in North America; the Isthmus of Tehuantepec, the Yucatán Peninsula, and the Darién Gap in Central America; and the northwest Amazon, the central Andes, and the Guianas in South America—remain relatively rural, sparsely populated and Indigenous into the 21st century, however several settler-colonial states, including Brazil, Colombia, Mexico, Argentina, and the United States grew into settler-colonial empires in their own right. Many of the social structures—including religions, political boundaries, and linguae francae—that predominate the western hemisphere in the 21st century are descendants of the structures established during this period.

The rapid rate at which Europe grew in wealth and power was unforeseeable in the early 15th century because it had been preoccupied with internal wars and was slowly recovering from the loss of population caused by the Black Death. The grip the Ottoman Empire held on trade routes to Asia prompted western European monarchs to search for alternatives, resulting in the voyages of Christopher Columbus and the accidental re-discovery of the "New World."

Upon signing the Treaty of Tordesillas in 1494, Portugal and Spain agreed to divide the Earth in two, with Portugal having dominion over non-Christian lands in the eastern half, and Spain over those in the western half. Spanish claims included essentially the entire American continent, however the Treaty of Tordesillas granted the eastern tip of South America to Portugal, where it established Brazil in the early 1500s.

It quickly became clear to other western European powers that they too could benefit from voyages west and by the 1530s, the British and French had begun colonizing the northeast tip of the Americas. Within the century, the Swedish had established New Sweden, the Dutch had established New Netherland, and Denmark–Norway along with the other aforementioned powers had made several claims in the Caribbean, and by the 1700s, Denmark–Norway had revived its former colonies in Greenland, and Russia had begun to explore and claim the Pacific Coast from Alaska to California.

Deadly confrontations became more frequent at the beginning of this period as the Indigenous Nations fought fiercely to preserve their territorial integrity from increasing numbers of European colonizers, as well as from hostile indigenous neighbors equipped with Eurasian technology. Conflict between the various empires and the Indigenous people was the leading dynamic in the Americas into the 1800s, and although some parts of the continent were gaining independence from Europe by that time, other regions such as California, Patagonia, the "Northwest Territories", and the northern Great Plains experienced little to no colonization at all until the 1800s.

Overview of Western European powers

Norsemen

Voyages of the Vikings to the Americas.

Norse explorers are the first known Europeans to set foot on what is now North America. Norse journeys to Greenland and Canada are supported by historical and archaeological evidence. The Norsemen established a colony in Greenland in the late 10th century, and lasted until the mid 15th century, with court and parliament assemblies (þing) taking place at Brattahlíð and a bishop located at Garðar. The remains of a settlement at L'Anse aux Meadows in Newfoundland, Canada, were discovered in 1960 and were dated to around the year 1000 (carbon dating estimate 990–1050 CE). L'Anse aux Meadows is the only site widely accepted as evidence of pre-Columbian trans-oceanic contact. It was named a World Heritage site by UNESCO in 1978. It is also notable for its possible connection with the attempted colony of Vinland, established by Leif Erikson around the same period or, more broadly, with the Norse colonization of the Americas. Leif Erikson's brother is said to have had the first contact with the native population of North America which would come to be known as the skrælings. After capturing and killing eight of the natives, they were attacked at their beached ships, which they defended.

Spain

While some Norse colonies were established in north eastern North America as early as the 10th century, systematic European colonization began in 1492. A Spanish expedition headed by the Italian explorer Christopher Columbus sailed west to find a new trade route to the Far East but inadvertently landed in what came to be known to Europeans as the "New World". He landed on 12 October 1492 on Guanahani (possibly Cat Island) in The Bahamas, which the Lucayan people had inhabited since the 9th century. Western European conquest, large-scale exploration and colonization soon followed after the Spanish and Portuguese final reconquest of Iberia in 1492. Columbus's first two voyages (1492–93) reached Hispaniola and various other Caribbean islands, including Puerto Rico and Cuba. In the 1494 Treaty of Tordesillas, ratified by the Pope, the two kingdoms of Castile (in a personal union with other kingdoms of Spain) and Portugal divided the entire non-European world into two areas of exploration and colonization, with a north to south boundary that cut through the Atlantic Ocean and the eastern part of present-day Brazil. Based on this treaty and on early claims by Spanish explorer Vasco Núñez de Balboa, discoverer of the Pacific Ocean in 1513, the Spanish conquered large territories in North, Central and South America. They started colonizing the Caribbean, using islands such as Cuba, Puerto Rico, and Hispaniola as bases.

The Spanish had different goals in their exploration of the land than the later European powers. They had three goals for exploration: “Conquer, convert, or become rich”. The Spanish justified their claims to the New World based on the Ideals of the Reconquista. They saw their reconquest of the Iberian Peninsula out from the Moor's control as evidence of the “divine help". They believed it to be their duty to save the natives from eternal damnation by converting them to Christianity. In 1492 the first Spaniard had finally become Pope and Spain justified their right to implement Christianity throughout the world.

The lands under the crown of Castile in 1506.

Over the first century and a half after Columbus's voyages, the native population of the Americas plummeted by an estimated 80% (from around 50 million in 1492 to eight million in 1650), mostly by outbreaks of Old World disease. Some authors have argued this demographic collapse to be the first large-scale act of genocide in the modern era. Ten years after Columbus's discovery, the administration of Hispaniola was given to Nicolás de Ovando of the Order of Alcántara, founded during the Reconquista. As in the Iberian Peninsula, the inhabitants of Hispaniola were given new land masters, while religious orders handled the local administration. Progressively the encomienda system, which granted tribute (access to indigenous labor and taxation) to European settlers, was set in place. Spanish conquistador Hernán Cortés took over the Aztec Kingdom and from 1519 to 1521, he waged a campaign against the Aztec Empire, ruled by Moctezuma II. The Aztec capital, Tenochtitlan, became Mexico City, the chief city of what the Spanish were now calling "New Spain". More than 240,000 Aztecs died during the siege of Tenochtitlan, 100,000 in combat, while 500–1,000 of the Spaniards engaged in the conquest died. Other conquistadors, such as Hernando de Soto, Francisco Vázquez de Coronado, and Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca, pushed farther north, from Florida, Mexico, and the Caribbean, respectively, in the early 1500s. In 1513, Vasco Núñez de Balboa crossed the Isthmus of Panama and led the first European expedition to see the Pacific Ocean from the west coast of the New World. In an action with enduring historical import, Balboa claimed the Pacific Ocean and all the lands adjoining it for the Spanish Crown. It was 1517 before another expedition, from Cuba, visited Central America, landing on the coast of Yucatán in search of slaves. To the south, Francisco Pizarro conquered the Inca Empire during the 1530s. As a result, by the mid-16th century, the Crown of Castile had gained control of much of western South America, and southern North America, in addition to its earlier Caribbean territories. The crown established the laws of the Indies to assert its power against the encomenderos and conquistadors and to regulate the incorporation of the natives into colonial society. The centuries of continuous conflicts between the North American Indians and the Anglo-Americans were less severe than the devastation wrought on the densely populated Mesoamerican, Andean, and Caribbean heartlands. To reward their troops, the Conquistadores often allotted Indian towns to their troops and officers. Black African slaves were introduced to substitute for Native American labor in some locations—including the West Indies, where the indigenous population was nearing extinction on many islands.

On Columbus's return to Hispaniola in 1493, he arrived with 17 ships and 1,200 men but there was little gold left. They "roamed the island in gangs looking for gold, taking women and children as slaves for sex and labor.” In 1500, Columbus wrote that “there are many dealers who go about looking for girls; those from nine to 10 are now in demand.” Due to the shortage in gold, the Spanish established the “Practice of Tribute” under the encomienda system which required every Indian male to turn in a certain amount of gold every ninety days or face death. The reading of The Requerimento before war was both unintelligible to the natives and used as a manipulation tactic. The document stated that the indigenous were subjects of the Spanish Crown and would be tortured if they resisted. As the indigenous population declined, the Europeans abducted people from other islands, like the Lucayan, to labor in the fields and mines of Hispaniola. By the 1600s, the island had been deserted for over a century.

The Iberian Union of Spain and Portugal (1580–1640)
 
Harbour Street, Kingston, Jamaica, c. 1820

Portugal

Over this same time frame as Spain, Portugal claimed lands in North America (Canada) and colonized much of eastern South America naming it Santa Cruz and Brazil. On behalf of both the Portuguese and Spanish crowns, cartographer Americo Vespuscio explored the American east coast, and published his new book Mundus Novus (New World) in 1502–1503 which disproved the belief that the Americas were the easternmost part of Asia and confirmed that Columbus had reached a set of continents previously unheard of to any Europeans. Cartographers still use a Latinized version of his first name, America, for the two continents. In April 1500, Portuguese noble Pedro Álvares Cabral claimed the region of Brazil to Portugal; the effective colonization of Brazil began three decades later with the founding of São Vicente in 1532 and the establishment of the system of captaincies in 1534, which was later replaced by other systems. Others tried to colonize the eastern coasts of present-day Canada and the River Plate in South America. These explorers include João Vaz Corte-Real in Newfoundland; João Fernandes Lavrador, Gaspar and Miguel Corte-Real and João Álvares Fagundes, in Newfoundland, Greenland, Labrador, and Nova Scotia (from 1498 to 1502, and in 1520).

During this time, the Portuguese gradually switched from an initial plan of establishing trading posts to extensive colonization of what is now Brazil. They imported millions of slaves to run their plantations. The Portuguese and Spanish royal governments expected to rule these settlements and collect at least 20% of all treasure found (the quinto real collected by the Casa de Contratación), in addition to collecting all the taxes they could. By the late 16th century silver from the Americas accounted for one-fifth of the combined total budget of Portugal and Spain. In the 16th century perhaps 240,000 Europeans entered ports in the Americas.

France

France founded colonies in the Americas: in eastern North America (which had not been colonized by Spain north of Florida), a number of Caribbean islands (which had often already been conquered by the Spanish or depopulated by disease), and small coastal parts of South America. French explorers included Giovanni da Verrazzano in 1524; Jacques Cartier (1491–1557), Henry Hudson (1560s–1611), and Samuel de Champlain (1567–1635), who explored the region of Canada he reestablished as New France.

In the French colonial regions, the focus of economy was on sugar plantations in Caribbean. In Canada the fur trade with the natives was important. About 16,000 French men and women became colonizers. The great majority became subsistence farmers along the St. Lawrence River. With a favorable disease environment and plenty of land and food, their numbers grew exponentially to 65,000 by 1760. Their colony was taken over by Britain in 1760, but social, religious, legal, cultural and economic changes were few in a society that clung tightly to its recently formed traditions.

England

British colonization began with North America almost a century after Spain. The relatively late arrival meant that the British could use the other European colonization powers as models for their endeavors. Inspired by the Spanish riches from colonies founded upon the conquest of the Aztecs, Incas, and other large Native American populations in the 16th century, their first attempt at colonization occurred in Roanoke and Newfoundland, although unsuccessful. In 1606, King James I granted a charter with the purpose of discovering the riches at their first permanent settlement in Jamestown, Virginia in 1607. They were sponsored by common stock companies such as the chartered Virginia Company financed by wealthy Englishmen who exaggerated the economic potential of the land.

Penn's Treaty with the Indians

The Protestant Reformation of the 16th century broke the unity of Western Christendom and led to the formation of numerous new religious sects, which often faced persecution by governmental authorities. In England, many people came to question the organization of the Church of England by the end of the 16th century. One of the primary manifestations of this was the Puritan movement, which sought to "purify" the existing Church of England of its residual Catholic rites. The first of these people, known as the Pilgrims, landed on Plymouth Rock, MA in November 1620. Continuous waves of repression led to the migration of about 20,000 Puritans to New England between 1629 and 1642, where they founded multiple colonies. Later in the century, the new Pennsylvania colony was given to William Penn in settlement of a debt the king owed his father. Its government was established by William Penn in about 1682 to become primarily a refuge for persecuted English Quakers; but others were welcomed. Baptists, German and Swiss Protestants and Anabaptists also flocked to Pennsylvania. The lure of cheap land, religious freedom and the right to improve themselves with their own hand was very attractive.

Mainly due to discrimination, there was often a separation between English colonial communities and indigenous communities. The Europeans viewed the natives as savages who were not worthy of participating in what they considered civilized society. The native people of North America did not die out nearly as rapidly nor as greatly as those in Central and South America due in part to their exclusion from British society. The indigenous people continued to be stripped of their native lands and were pushed further out west. The English eventually went on to control much of Eastern North America, the Caribbean, and parts of South America. They also gained Florida and Quebec in the French and Indian War.

John Smith convinced the colonists of Jamestown that searching for gold was not taking care of their immediate needs for food and shelter. The lack of food security leading to extremely high mortality rate was quite distressing and cause for despair among the colonists. To support the colony, numerous supply missions were organized. Tobacco later became a cash crop, with the work of John Rolfe and others, for export and the sustaining economic driver of Virginia and the neighboring colony of Maryland. Plantation agriculture was a primary aspect of the colonies in the southeast US and in the Caribbean. They heavily relied on African slave labor to sustain their economic pursuits.

From the beginning of Virginia's settlements in 1587 until the 1680s, the main source of labor and a large portion of the immigrants were indentured servants looking for new life in the overseas colonies. During the 17th century, indentured servants constituted three-quarters of all European immigrants to the Chesapeake region. Most of the indentured servants were teenagers from England with poor economic prospects at home. Their fathers signed the papers that gave them free passage to America and an unpaid job until they became of age. They were given food, clothing, housing and taught farming or household skills. American landowners were in need of laborers and were willing to pay for a laborer's passage to America if they served them for several years. By selling passage for five to seven years worth of work, they could then start on their own in America. Many of the migrants from England died in the first few years.

Economic advantage also prompted the Darien Scheme, an ill-fated venture by the Kingdom of Scotland to settle the Isthmus of Panama in the late 1690s. The Darien Scheme aimed to control trade through that part of the world and thereby promote Scotland into a world trading power. However, it was doomed by poor planning, short provisions, weak leadership, lack of demand for trade goods, and devastating disease. The failure of the Darien Scheme was one of the factors that led the Kingdom of Scotland into the Act of Union 1707 with the Kingdom of England creating the united Kingdom of Great Britain and giving Scotland commercial access to English, now British, colonies.

Territorial evolution of North America of non-native nation states from 1750 to 2008
 
Central America and Caribbean sovereignty 1700–present

Christian conversion

When Pope Alexander VI issued the Inter caetera bull in May 1493 granting the new lands to the Kingdom of Spain, he requested in exchange an evangelization of the people. During Columbus's second voyage, Benedictine monks accompanied him, along with twelve other priests. Through a practice called the Mission System, supervised communities were established in frontier areas so that Spanish priests could preach the gospel to the indigenous population. These missions were established throughout the Spanish colonies which extended from the southwestern portions of current-day United States through Mexico and to Argentina and Chile. In the 1530s, the Spanish Roman Catholic Church, needing the natives' labor and cooperation, evangelized in Quechua, Nahuatl, Guaraní and other Native American languages. This contributed to the expansion of indigenous languages, including the establishment of tribal writing systems. One of the first primitive schools for Native Americans was founded by Fray Pedro de Gante in 1523.

As slavery was prohibited between Christians and could only be imposed in non-Christian prisoners of war or on men already sold as slaves, the debate on Christianization was particularly acute during the 16th century. Later, two Dominican priests, Bartolomé de Las Casas and the philosopher Juan Ginés de Sepúlveda, held the Valladolid debate, with the former arguing that Native Americans were endowed with souls like all other human beings, while the latter argued to the contrary to justify their enslavement. In 1537, the papal bull Sublimis Deus definitively recognized that Native Americans possessed souls, thus prohibiting their enslavement, without putting an end to the debate. Some claimed that a native who had rebelled and then been captured could be enslaved nonetheless. The process of Christianization was at first violent: when the first Franciscans arrived in Mexico in 1524, they burned the places dedicated to pagan cult, alienating much of the local population. Consequently, the indigenous were forced to denounce their intergenerational tribal beliefs and subjugate their history.

Slavery

African slaves 17th-century Virginia, 1670.

The practice of slavery was not uncommon in native society prior to the arrival of the Europeans. Captured members of rival tribes were often used as slaves and/or for human sacrifice. But with the arrival of white colonists, Indian slavery "became commodified, expanded in unexpected ways, and came to resemble the kinds of human trafficking that are recognizable to us today".

While disease was the main killer of the Indians, the practice of slavery was also significant contributor to the indigenous death toll. With the arrival of other European colonial powers, the enslavement of native populations increased as these empires lacked legislation against slavery until decades later. It is estimated that from Columbus's arrival to the end of the nineteenth century between 2.5 and 5 million Native Americans were forced into slavery. Indigenous men, women, and children were often forced into labor in sparsely populated frontier settings, in the household, or in the toxic gold and silver mines. To further extract as much gold as possible, the Europeans required all males above the age of 13 to trade gold as tribute. This practice was known as the encomienda system and granted free native labor to the Spaniards. Based upon the practice of exacting tribute from Muslims and Jews during the Reconquista, the Spanish Crown granted a number of native laborers to an encomendero, who was usually a conquistador or other prominent Spanish male. Under the grant, they were bound to both protecting the natives and converting them to Christianity. In exchange for their forced conversion to Christianity, the natives had to pay tributes in the form of gold, agricultural products, and labor. The Spanish crown saw the severe abuses going on and tried to terminate the system through the Laws of Burgos (1512–13) and the New Laws of the Indies (1542). However, the encomenderos refused to comply with the new measures and the indigenous people continued to be exploited. Eventually, the encomienda system was replaced by the repartimiento system which was not abolished until the late 18th century.

In the Pueblo Revolt of 1680, the Pueblo tribe led an uprising that resulted in the death of 400 Spanish colonizers and the reclaiming of indigenous land. Andrés Resendez argues this to be "the greatest insurrection against the other slavery". Resendez also argues that the perpetrators of native slavery were not always European colonists. He claims that the rise of powerful Indian tribes in what is now the American Southwest, such as the Comanche, led to indigenous control of the Native American slave trade by the early 1700s. The arrival of European settlers in the West increased the slave traffic by the nineteenth century. There is debate over whether the indigenous population of the Americas suffered a greater demographic decline than the African continent, despite the latter having lost roughly 12.5 million individuals to the transatlantic slave trade.

By the 18th century, the overwhelming number of black slaves was such that Amerindian slavery was less commonly used. Africans, who were taken aboard slave ships to the Americas, were primarily obtained from their African homelands by coastal tribes who captured and sold them. Europeans traded for slaves with the slave capturers of the local native African tribes in exchange for rum, guns, gunpowder, and other manufactures. The total slave trade to islands in the Caribbean, Brazil, the Portuguese, Spanish, French, Dutch, and British Empires is estimated to have involved 12 million Africans. The vast majority of these slaves went to sugar colonies in the Caribbean and to Brazil, where life expectancy was short and the numbers had to be continually replenished. At most about 600,000 African slaves were imported into the United States, or 5% of the 12 million slaves brought across from Africa.

Even though slavery went against the mission of the Catholic Church, the colonizers justified the practice through the belts of latitude theory, supported by Aristotle and Ptolemy. In this perspective, belts of latitude wrapped around the earth and corresponded with specific human traits. The peoples from the "cold zone" in Northern Europe were "of lesser prudence", while those of the "hot zone" in sub-Sahara Africa were intelligent but "weaker and less spirited". According to the theory, those of the "temperate zone" across the Mediterranean reflected an ideal balance of strength and prudence. Such ideas about latitude and character justified a natural human hierarchy.

During the Gold Rush of the 1800s, Indian enslavement flourished. American landowner, John Bidwell, coerced Indian children to work on his ranch by scaring them with tales of man-eating grizzly bears. He justified his protection and offering of food and clothing as fair payment for indigenous labor. Captain John Sutter paid the Indian slaves with metal disks that were punched with star-shaped holes to keep track of how much work they did. Two weeks of work meant they could receive a cotton shirt or a pair of pants. Andrew Kelsey organized the enslavement of five hundred Pomo Indians, where they flogged and shot these people for entertainment. They also raped young Indian women. In 1849, the Indians finally rebelled and murdered Kelsey in what became known as the Bloody Island Massacre. Other laws legalized a peonage system that allowed trial and punishment of any Indian who was traveling without a proper certificate of employment. These documents listed the "advanced wages" as a debt to be repaid before the Indian could be free to leave. This system allowed ranchers to control the migration of Indians and subject them to the labor draft. The Indian Act of 1850 legalized all types of exploitation and atrocities of indigenous people, including the "apprenticeship" of Indian minors which in practice gave the petitioner control of both the child and their earnings. Thus, the establishment of encomiendas, repartimientos, selling of convict labor, and debt peonage replaced formal slavery by instituting informal labor coercive practices that were nearly impossible to track, thus enabling the slave trade to continue.

Religious immigration

Roman Catholics were the first major religious group to immigrate to the New World, as settlers in the colonies of Portugal and Spain, and later, France, belonged to that faith. English and Dutch colonies, on the other hand, tended to be more religiously diverse. Settlers to these colonies included Anglicans, Dutch Calvinists, English Puritans and other nonconformists, English Catholics, Scottish Presbyterians, French Huguenots, German and Swedish Lutherans, as well as Jews, Quakers, Mennonites, Amish, and Moravians.

Disease and indigenous population loss

Drawing accompanying text in Book XII of the 16th-century Florentine Codex (compiled 1540–1585)
Nahua suffering from smallpox

The European lifestyle included a long history of sharing close quarters with domesticated animals such as cows, pigs, sheep, goats, horses, dogs and various domesticated fowl, from which many diseases originally stemmed. In contrast to the indigenous people, the Europeans had developed a richer endowment of antibodies. The large-scale contact with Europeans after 1492 introduced Eurasian germs to the indigenous people of the Americas.

Epidemics of smallpox (1518, 1521, 1525, 1558, 1589), typhus (1546), influenza (1558), diphtheria (1614) and measles (1618) swept the Americas subsequent to European contact, killing between 10 million and 100 million people, up to 95% of the indigenous population of the Americas. The cultural and political instability attending these losses appears to have been of substantial aid in the efforts of various colonists in New England and Massachusetts to acquire control over the great wealth in land and resources of which indigenous societies had customarily made use.

Juan Ponce de León (Santervás de Campos, Valladolid, Spain)
 
Italian explorers who played a key role in the European colonization of the Americas (clockwise from top): Christopher Columbus, John Cabot, Amerigo Vespucci and Giovanni da Verrazzano
 
Spanish and Portuguese empires in 1790.

Such diseases yielded human mortality of an unquestionably enormous gravity and scale – and this has profoundly confused efforts to determine its full extent with any true precision. Estimates of the pre-Columbian population of the Americas vary tremendously.

Others have argued that significant variations in population size over pre-Columbian history are reason to view higher-end estimates with caution. Such estimates may reflect historical population maxima, while indigenous populations may have been at a level somewhat below these maxima or in a moment of decline in the period just prior to contact with Europeans. Indigenous populations hit their ultimate lows in most areas of the Americas in the early 20th century; in a number of cases, growth has returned.

According to scientists from University College London, the colonization of the Americas by Europeans killed so much of the indigenous population that it resulted in climate change and global cooling. Some contemporary scholars also attribute significant indigenous population losses in the Caribbean to the widespread practice of slavery and deadly forced labor in gold and silver mines. Historian, Andrés Reséndez, supports this claim and argues that indigenous populations were smaller previous estimations and “a nexus of slavery, overwork and famine killed more Indians in the Caribbean than smallpox, influenza and malaria.”

Impact of colonial land ownership on long-term development

Eventually, most of the Western Hemisphere came under the control of Western European governments, leading to changes to its landscape, population, and plant and animal life. In the 19th century over 50 million people left Western Europe for the Americas. The post-1492 era is known as the period of the Columbian Exchange, a dramatically widespread exchange of animals, plants, culture, human populations (including slaves), ideas, and communicable disease between the American and Afro-Eurasian hemispheres following Columbus's voyages to the Americas.

Most scholars writing at the end of the 19th century estimated that the pre-Columbian population was as low as 10 million; by the end of the 20th century most scholars gravitated to a middle estimate of around 50 million, with some historians arguing for an estimate of 100 million or more. A recent estimate is that there were about 60.5 million people living in the Americas immediately before depopulation, of which 90 per cent, mostly in Central and South America, perished from wave after wave of disease, along with war and slavery playing their part.

Geographic differences between the colonies played a large determinant in the types of political and economic systems that later developed. In their paper on institutions and long-run growth, economists Daron Acemoglu, Simon Johnson, and James A. Robinson argue that certain natural endowments gave rise to distinct colonial policies promoting either smallholder or coerced labor production. Densely settled populations, for example, were more easily exploitable and profitable as slave labor. In these regions, landowning elites were economically incentivized to develop forced labor arrangements such as the Peru mit'a system or Argentinian latifundias without regard for democratic norms. French and British colonial leaders, conversely, were incentivized to develop capitalist markets, property rights, and democratic institutions in response to natural environments that supported smallholder production over forced labor.

James Mahoney, a professor at Northwestern University, proposes that colonial policy choices made at critical junctures regarding land ownership in coffee-rich Central America fostered enduring path dependent institutions. Coffee economies in Guatemala and El Salvador, for example, were centralized around large plantations that operated under coercive labor systems. By the 19th century, their political structures were largely authoritarian and militarized. In Colombia and Costa Rica, conversely, liberal reforms were enacted at critical junctures to expand commercial agriculture, and they ultimately raised the bargaining power of the middle class. Both nations eventually developed more democratic and egalitarian institutions than their highly concentrated landowning counterparts.

Colonization and race

Castas painting depicting Spaniard and mulatta spouse with their morisca daughter by Miguel Cabrera, 1763

Throughout the South American hemisphere, there were three large regional sources of populations: Native Americans, arriving Europeans, and forcibly transported Africans. The mixture of these cultures impacted the ethnic makeup that predominates in the hemisphere's largely independent states today. The term to describe someone of mixed European and indigenous ancestry is mestizo while the term to describe someone of mixed European and African ancestry is mulatto. The mestizo and mulatto population are specific to Iberian-influenced current-day Latin America because the conquistadors had (often forced) sexual relations with the indigenous and African women. The social interaction of these three groups of people inspired the creation of a caste system based on skin tone. The hierarchy centered around those with the lightest skin tone and ordered from highest to lowest was the Peninsulares, Criollos, mestizos, indigenous, mulatto, then African.

Unlike the Iberians, the British men came with families with whom they planned to permanently live in what is now North America. They kept the natives on the margins of colonial society. Because the British colonizers' wives were present, the British men rarely had sexual relations with the native women. While the mestizo and mulatto population make up the majority of people in Latin America today, there is only a small mestizo population in present-day North America (excluding Central America).

List of European colonies in the Americas

Puerto Plata, Dominican Republic. Founded in 1502, the city is the oldest continuously-inhabited European settlement in the New World.
 
Cumaná, Venezuela. Founded in 1510, it is the oldest continuously-inhabited European city in the continental Americas.

There were at least a dozen European countries involved in the colonization of the Americas. The following list indicates those countries and the Western Hemisphere territories they worked to control.

British and (before 1707) English

Courland (indirectly part of Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth)

Danish

Dutch

French

Knights of Malta

Norwegian

Portuguese

Russian

The Russian-American Company's capital at New Archangel (present-day Sitka, Alaska) in 1837

Scottish

Spanish

Spanish General Arsenio Martínez Campos in Havana, Spanish Cuba, 1878

Swedish

Failed attempts

German

Italian

Exhibitions and collections

In 2007, the Smithsonian Institution National Museum of American History and the Virginia Historical Society (VHS) co-organized a traveling exhibition to recount the strategic alliances and violent conflict between European empires (English, Spanish, French) and the Native people living in North America. The exhibition was presented in three languages and with multiple perspectives. Artifacts on display included rare surviving Native and European artifacts, maps, documents, and ceremonial objects from museums and royal collections on both sides of the Atlantic. The exhibition opened in Richmond, Virginia on March 17, 2007, and closed at the Smithsonian International Gallery on October 31, 2009.

The related online exhibition explores the international origins of the societies of Canada and the United States and commemorates the 400th anniversary of three lasting settlements in Jamestown (1607), Quebec City (1608), and Santa Fe (1609). The site is accessible in three languages.

  • New Netherland (1609–1667)
  • Essequibo (1616–1815)
  • Dutch Virgin Islands (1625–1680)
  • Berbice (1627–1815)
  • New Walcheren (1628–1677)
  • Dutch Brazil (1630–1654)
  • Pomeroon (1650–1689)
  • Cayenne (1658–1664)
  • Demerara (1745–1815)


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    Critical race theory

    From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

    Critical race theory (CRT) examines social, cultural and legal issues as they relate to race and racism. It is an academic discipline composed of civil-rights scholars in the United States who have examined how ostensibly colorblind laws may enforce societal or structural racism; and how transforming the relationship between law and racial power can achieve racial emancipation and anti-subordination more broadly. Critical race theory examines how the law intersects with issues of race, and challenges mainstream liberal approaches to racial justice.

    Critical race theory, a derivative of Critical Theory, was founded in the mid-1970s in the writings of several American legal scholars, including Derrick Bell, Alan Freeman, Kimberlé Crenshaw, Richard Delgado, Cheryl Harris, Charles R. Lawrence III, Mari Matsuda, and Patricia J. Williams. It emerged as a movement by the 1980s, reworking theories of critical legal studies (CLS) with more focus on race. Both critical race theory and critical legal studies are rooted in critical theory, an approach to social theory founded by the Frankfurt School, which argues that social problems are influenced and created more by societal structures and cultural assumptions than by individual and psychological factors.

    Critical race theory sees racism as systemic and institutional, rather than just a collection of individual prejudices. It also views race as a socially constructed identity. The theory emphasizes how racism and disparate racial outcomes can be the result of complex, changing and often subtle social and institutional dynamics, rather than explicit and intentional prejudices by individuals. In the field of legal studies, critical race theory emphasizes that merely making laws colorblind on paper may not be enough to make the application of the laws colorblind; ostensibly colorblind laws can be applied in racially discriminatory ways. Intersectionality – which emphasizes that race can intersect with other identities (such as gender and class) to produce complex combinations of power and disadvantage – is a key concept in critical race theory.

    Opponents of critical race theory argue that it relies on social constructionism, elevates storytelling over evidence and reason, rejects the concepts of truth and merit, and opposes liberalism. Critical race theory has also been criticized in regards to its relation to some controversial diversity training practices. Since 2020, Republicans and conservatives in the United States have sought to ban or restrict critical race theory instruction. As of June 2021, eight U.S. states have enacted laws banning the teaching of critical race theory, and nine others are in the process of doing so. Critics of the efforts to ban its teaching say that critical race theory has been unduly elevated in importance, that its contents have been misrepresented, and that the goal behind these efforts is to silence broader discussions of racism, equality, social justice, and the history of race. Christopher Rufo, a leading activist against critical race theory, has described his strategy to oppose critical race theory as intentionally using the term to conflate various unpopular left-wing race-related ideas in order to create a negative association.

    Definitions

    Roy L. Brooks defined critical race theory in 1994 as "a collection of critical stances against the existing legal order from a race-based point of view". Richard Delgado, a co-founder of the theory, defined it in 2017 as "a collection of activists and scholars interested in studying and transforming the relationship among race, racism, and power".

    History

    Early analyses that later consolidated into critical race theory developed in the 1970s as legal scholars, activists, and lawyers tried to understand why civil rights era victories had stalled and were being eroded.

    In the early 1980s, students of color at Harvard Law School organized protests regarding Harvard's lack of racial diversity in the curriculum, among students, and in the faculty. These students supported Professor Derrick Bell, who left Harvard Law in 1980 and then became the dean at University of Oregon School of Law. During his time at Harvard, Bell had developed new courses that studied American law through a racial lens. Harvard students of color wanted faculty of color to teach the new courses in his absence. Bell resigned his position at Harvard because of what he viewed as the university's discriminatory practices.

    The university ignored student requests, responding that no sufficiently qualified black instructor existed. Legal scholar Randall Kennedy noted that some students felt affronted by Harvard's choice to employ an "archetypal white liberal... in a way that precludes the development of black leadership". In response, numerous students, including Kimberlé Crenshaw and Mari Matsuda, boycotted and organized to develop an "Alternative Course" using Bell's Race, Racism, and American Law (1973, 1st edition) as a core text. They included guest speakers Richard Delgado and Neil Gotanda.

    First meetings

    The first formal meeting centered on critical race theory was the 1989 "New Developments in Critical Race Theory" workshop, an effort to connect the theoretical underpinnings of critical legal studies (CLS) to the day-to-day realities of American racial politics. The workshop was organized by Kimberlé Crenshaw for a retreat entitled "New Developments in Critical Race Theory" that effectively created the field. As Crenshaw states, only she, Matsuda, Gotanda, Chuck Lawrence, and a handful of others knew "that there were no new developments in critical race theory, because CRT hadn't had any old ones—it didn't exist, it was made up as a name. Sometimes you gotta fake it until you make it". Crenshaw states that critical race theorists had "discovered ourselves to be critical theorists who did race and racial justice advocates who did critical theory". Crenshaw writes, "one might say that CRT was the offspring of a post-civil rights institutional activism that was generated and informed by an oppositionalist orientation toward racial power".

    One manner in which CRT diverged from CLS post-1987 was CRT's stress on the importance of race. Though CLS criticized the legal system's role in generating and legitimizing oppressive social structures, it did not tend to provide alternatives. CRT scholars such as Derrick Bell and Alan Freeman argue that failure to include race and racism in its analysis prevented CLS from suggesting new directions for social transformation.

    The 1989 critical race theory workshop at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, attended by 24 scholars of color, marked a turning point for the field. Following this meeting, scholars began publishing a higher volume of works employing critical race theory, including some that became popular among general audiences. In 1991, Patricia Williams published The Alchemy of Race and Rights, while Derrick Bell published Faces at the Bottom of the Well in 1992. Both became national best sellers.

    Spread

    In 1995, Gloria Ladson-Billings and William F. Tate began applying the critical race theory framework in the field of education, moving it beyond the field of legal scholarship. They sought to better understand inequities in the context of schooling. Scholars have since expanded work in this context to explore issues including segregation, relations between race, gender, and academic achievement, pedagogy, and research methodologies.

    As of 2002, over 20 American law schools and at least three non-American law schools offered critical race theory courses or classes which covered the issue centrally. In addition to law, critical race theory is taught and applied in the fields of education, political science, women's studies, ethnic studies, communication, sociology, and American studies. A variety of spin-off movements developed that apply critical race theory to specific groups. These include the Latino-critical (LatCrit), queer-critical, and Asian-critical movements. These other groups continued to engage with the main body of critical theory research, over time developing independent priorities and research methods.

    List of scholars

    Principal figures of the theory include Derrick Bell, Patricia J. Williams, Kimberlé Williams Crenshaw, Camara Phyllis Jones, Angela Harris, Charles Lawrence, Alan Freeman, Neil Gotanda, Mitu Gulati, Jerry Kang, Eric Yamamoto, Robert Williams, Ian Haney López, Kevin Johnson, Laura Gomez, Margaret Montoya, Juan Perea, Francisco Valdes, Dean Carbado, Cheryl Harris, Angela Onwuachi-Willig, Tom Ross, Stephanie Wildman, Nancy Levit, Robert Harman, Jean Stefancic, andré cummings, and Mari Matsuda.

    Views

    In regard to critical race theory being seen as politically radical, writer Will Oremus has argued: "The theory [is] radical... in the sense that it questions fundamental assumptions.... And unlike some strands of academic and legal thought, critical race theory has an open and activist agenda, with an emphasis on storytelling and personal experience. It's about righting wrongs, not just questing after knowledge.... Many of their ideas are not radical today in the sense of being outside the mainstream: Critical race theory is widely taught and studied."

    Developments in the early 2000s in critical race theory included work relying on updated social psychological research on unconscious bias in order to justify affirmative action; and work relying on law and economic methodology to examine structural inequality and discrimination in the workplace.

    Common themes

    Common themes that are characteristic of work in critical race theory, as documented by such scholars as Richard Delgado and Jean Stefancic, include:

    • Critique of liberalism: Critical race theory scholars question foundational liberal concepts such as Enlightenment, rationalism, legal equality, and Constitutional neutrality, and challenge the incrementalist approach of traditional civil-rights discourse. They favor a race-conscious approach to social transformation, critiquing liberal ideas such as affirmative action, color blindness, role modeling, or the merit principle with an approach that relies more on political organizing, in contrast to liberalism's reliance on rights-based remedies.
    • Storytelling, counter-storytelling, and "naming one's own reality": The use of narrative (storytelling) to illuminate and explore lived experiences of racial oppression. Bryan Brayboy has emphasized the epistemic importance of storytelling in Indigenous-American communities as superseding that of theory, and has proposed a Tribal Critical Race Theory (TribCrit).
    • Revisionist interpretations of American civil rights law and progress: Criticism of civil-rights scholarship and anti-discrimination law, such as Brown v. Board of Education. Derrick Bell, one of CRT's founders, argues that civil-rights advances for black people coincided with the self-interest of white elitists. Likewise, Mary L. Dudziak performed extensive archival research in the U.S. Department of State and Department of Justice, including the correspondence by U.S. ambassadors abroad, and concluded that U.S. civil-rights legislation was not passed because people of color were discriminated against; rather, it was enacted in order to improve the image of the United States in the eyes of third-world countries that the US needed as allies during the Cold War.
    • Intersectional theory: The examination of race, sex, class, national origin, and sexual orientation, and how their combination (i.e., their intersections) plays out in various settings, e.g., how the needs of a Latina female are different from those of a black male and whose needs are the ones promoted.
    • Standpoint epistemology: The view that a member of a minority has an authority and ability to speak about racism that members of other racial groups do not have, and that this can expose the racial neutrality of law as false.
    • Essentialism vs. anti-essentialism: Delgado and Stefancic write, "Scholars who write about these issues are concerned with the appropriate unit for analysis: Is the black community one, or many, communities? Do middle- and working-class African-Americans have different interests and needs? Do all oppressed peoples have something in common?" This is a look at the ways that oppressed groups may share in their oppression but also have different needs and values that need to be looked at differently. It is a question of how groups can be essentialized or are unable to be essentialized.
    • Structural determinism: Exploration of how "the structure of legal thought or culture influences its content", whereby a particular mode of thought or widely shared practice determines significant social outcomes, usually occurring without conscious knowledge. As such, theorists posit that our system cannot redress certain kinds of wrongs.
    • Empathetic fallacy: Believing that one can change a narrative by offering an alternative narrative in hopes that the listener's empathy will quickly and reliably take over. Empathy is not enough to change racism as most people are not exposed to many people different from themselves and people mostly seek out information about their own culture and group.
    • Non-white cultural nationalism/separatism: The exploration of more radical views that argue for separation and reparations as a form of foreign aid (including black nationalism).

    Internalization

    Karen Pyke documents the theoretical element of internalized racism or internalized racial oppression, whereby victims of racism begin to believe in the ideology that they are inferior to whites and white culture, who are superior. The internalizing of racism is not due to any weakness, ignorance, inferiority, psychological defect, gullibility, or other shortcomings of the oppressed. Instead, it is how authority and power in all aspects of society contribute to feelings of inequality.

    Institutional racism

    Camara Phyllis Jones defines institutionalized racism as

    differential access to the goods, services, and opportunities of society by race. Institutionalized racism is normative, sometimes legalized and often manifests as inherited disadvantage. It is structural, having been absorbed into our institutions of custom, practice, and law, so there need not be an identifiable offender. Indeed, institutionalized racism is often evident as inaction in the face of need, manifesting itself both in material conditions and in access to power. With regard to the former, examples include differential access to quality education, sound housing, gainful employment, appropriate medical facilities, and a clean environment.

    Influence of critical legal studies

    As a movement that draws heavily from critical theory, critical race theory shares many intellectual commitments with critical theory, critical legal studies, feminist jurisprudence, and postcolonial theory. However, some authors like Tommy J. Curry have pointed out that the epistemic convergences with such approaches are emphasized due to the idealist turn in critical race theory. The latter, as Curry explains, is interested in discourse (i.e., how individuals speak about race) and the theories of white Continental philosophers, over and against the structural and institutional accounts of white supremacy which were at the heart of the realist analysis of racism introduced in Derrick Bell's early works, and articulated through such Black thinkers as W. E. B. Du Bois, Paul Robeson, and Judge Robert L. Carter.

    Critical race theory draws on the priorities and perspectives of both critical legal studies and conventional civil rights scholarship, while also sharply contesting both of these fields. Critical race theory's theoretical elements are provided by a variety of sources. Angela P. Harris describes critical race theory as sharing "a commitment to a vision of liberation from racism through right reason" with the civil rights tradition. It deconstructs some premises and arguments of legal theory and simultaneously holds that legally constructed rights are incredibly important. As described by Derrick Bell, critical race theory in Harris' view is committed to "radical critique of the law (which is normatively deconstructionist) and... radical emancipation by the law (which is normatively reconstructionist)".

    Applications

    Scholars of critical race theory have focused, with some particularity, on the issues of hate crime and hate speech. In response to the opinion of the U.S. Supreme Court in the hate speech case of R.A.V. v. City of St. Paul (1992), in which the Court struck down an anti-bias ordinance as applied to a teenager who had burned a cross, Mari Matsuda and Charles Lawrence argued that the Court had paid insufficient attention to the history of racist speech and the actual injury produced by such speech.

    Critical race theorists have also paid particular attention to the issue of affirmative action, whereby scholars have argued in favor of such on the argument that so-called merit standards for hiring and educational admissions are not race-neutral for a variety of reasons, and that such standards are part of the rhetoric of neutrality through which whites justify their disproportionate share of resources and social benefits.

    Criticism

    Academic

    Daniel A. Farber and Suzanna Sherry argue that critical race theory lacks supporting evidence, relies on an implausible belief that reality is socially constructed, rejects evidence in favor of storytelling, rejects truth and merit as expressions of political dominance, and rejects the rule of law. Additionally, they posit that the anti-meritocratic tenets in critical race theory, critical feminism, and critical legal studies may unintentionally lead to antisemitic and anti-Asian implications. In particular, they suggest that the success of Jews and Asians within what critical race theorists argue is a structurally unfair system may lend itself to allegations of cheating, advantage-taking, or other such claims. A series of responses to Farber and Sherry was published in the Harvard Law Review. These responses argue that there is a difference between criticizing an unfair system and criticizing individuals who perform well inside that system. In the Boston College Law Review, Jeffrey Pyle argues that critical race theory undermines confidence in the rule of law, saying that "critical race theorists attack the very foundations of the liberal legal order, including equality theory, legal reasoning, Enlightenment rationalism and neutral principles of constitutional law".

    By jurists

    Judge Richard Posner of the U.S. Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals argued in 1997 that critical race theory "turns its back on the Western tradition of rational inquiry, forswearing analysis for narrative", and that "by repudiating reasoned argumentation, [critical race theorists] reinforce stereotypes about the intellectual capacities of nonwhites." Former Judge Alex Kozinski, who served on the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, criticized critical race theorists in 1997 for raising "insuperable barriers to mutual understanding" and thus eliminating opportunities for "meaningful dialogue".

    Other

    Political commentators including George Will see resonances between critical race theory's use of storytelling and insistence that race poses challenges to objective judgments in the U.S., as exemplified by the acquittal of O. J. Simpson.

    Controversies

    Critical race theory has stirred controversy in the United States since the 1980s for deviating from the ideal of color blindness, promoting the use of narrative in legal studies, advocating for the use of "legal instrumentalism" as opposed to ideal-driven uses of the law, analyzing the U.S. Constitution and existing law as constructed according to and perpetuating racial power, and encouraging legal scholars to promote racial equity. In the run-up to and aftermath of the 2020 US presidential election, opposition to critical race theory was adopted as a campaign theme by Donald Trump and various conservative commentators on Fox News and right-wing talk radio shows.

    1990s

    Lani Guinier, Bill Clinton's nominee for Assistant Attorney General, was attacked by Republicans in part for her association with CRT, in an attempt to block her nomination. In a Wall Street Journal article published June 2, 1993, Clint Bolick, then director of the Institute for Justice, tied Guinier to CRT, which he defined as "a profoundly left-wing school of thought that has redefined the outer boundaries of radicalism in legal academia". These attacks ultimately proved successful, since Clinton quickly withdrew her nomination on June 4, 1993, on the basis that he allegedly had some points of disagreement with her legal philosophy.

    2010s

    In 2010, a Tucson, Arizona, school district Mexican-American studies program was effectively banned because of its connection to critical race theory, which was seen to be in violation of a recently passed state law prohibiting schools from "offering courses that 'advocate ethnic solidarity instead of the treatment of pupils as individuals.'" The ban included the confiscation of books, in some cases in front of students, by the Tucson Unified School District. Matt de la Peña's young-adult novel Mexican WhiteBoy was banned for containing critical race theory. However, this ban was later deemed unconstitutional on the grounds that the state showed discriminatory intent. "Both enactment and enforcement were motivated by racial animus", federal Judge A. Wallace Tashima ruled.

    2020s

    United Kingdom

    On October 20, 2020, the Conservative UK Equalities Minister Kemi Badenoch stated that, in regard to teaching critical race theory in primary and secondary schools, "we do not want to see teachers teaching their pupils about white privilege and inherited racial guilt.... any school which teaches these elements of critical race theory, or which promotes partisan political views such as defunding the police without offering a balanced treatment of opposing views, is breaking the law". On October 30, 2020, an open letter signed by 101 writers of the Black Writers' Guild condemned Badenoch for saying that some authors want racial division. Among the comments the letter condemned were her criticisms of books such as White Fragility and Why I'm No Longer Talking to White People About Race, about which she said: "many of these books—and, in fact, some of the authors and proponents of critical race theory—actually want a segregated society".

    United States

    In September 2020, after seeing a piece on Fox News in which conservative activist Christopher Rufo denounced the theory, President Donald Trump issued an executive order directing agencies of the United States Government to cancel funding for programs that mention "white privilege" or "critical race theory", on the basis that it constituted "divisive, un-American propaganda" and that it was "racist". In a speech on September 17, 2020 Trump decried "critical race theory" and announced the formation of the 1776 Commission to promote "patriotic education". The 1776 Commission was co-chaired by retired political science professor Carol Swain, who wrote a New York Times editorial criticizing Lani Guinier during her 1993 nomination process. On January 20, 2021, President Joe Biden rescinded Trump's order and dissolved the 1776 Commission. Critical race theory was subsequently adopted as a major theme by several conservative think tanks and pressure groups, including the Heritage Foundation, the Idaho Freedom Foundation and the American Legislative Exchange Council.

    In early 2021, a number of Republican-controlled state legislatures introduced bills to restrict teaching about racism in public schools. Several of these bills specifically mention "critical race theory" or single out the New York Times' 1619 Project. In mid-April 2021, a bill was introduced in the Idaho legislature that would effectively ban any educational entity (including school districts, public charter school, and public institutions of higher education) in the state from teaching or advocating "sectarianism", including critical race theory or other programs involving social justice. On May 4, 2021 the bill was signed into law by Governor Brad Little. On June 10, 2021 the Florida State Board of Education unanimously voted to ban public schools from teaching critical race theory at the urging of governor Ron DeSantis. As of June 2021, eight U.S. states have enacted laws banning the teaching of critical race theory and nine others were in the process of doing so.

    Some commentators have criticized conservatives for misusing the term as a catch-all to describe any anti-racism or diversity-related efforts. Conservative activist Christopher Rufo, whose recognition of the term's usefulness as a political weapon for conservatives propelled the controversy over it to the mainstream, wrote that "The goal is to have the public read something crazy in the newspaper and immediately think 'critical race theory,'" so that the term would become synonymous with "the entire range of cultural constructions that are unpopular with Americans".

    Subfields

    Within critical race theory, various sub-groupings have emerged to focus on issues that fall outside the black-white paradigm of race relations as well as issues that relate to the intersection of race with issues of gender, sexuality, class and other social structures. For example, critical race feminism (CRF), Hebrew Crit (HebCrit), Latino critical race studies (LatCrit), Asian American critical race studies (AsianCrit), South Asian American critical race studies (DesiCrit), and American Indian critical race studies (sometimes called TribalCrit). CRT methodologies have also been applied to the study of white immigrant groups. CRT has spurred some scholars to call for a second wave of whiteness studies, which is now a small offshoot known as Second Wave Whiteness (SWW). Critical race theory has also begun to spawn research that looks at understandings of race outside the United States.

    Disability critical race theory

    Another offshoot field is disability critical race studies (DisCrit), which combines disability studies and CRT to focus on the intersection of disability and race.

    Latino critical race theory

    Latino critical race theory (LatCRT or LatCrit) is a research framework that outlines the social construction of race as central to how people of color are constrained and oppressed in society. Race scholars developed LatCRT as a critical response to the "problem of the color line" first explained by W. E. B. Du Bois. While CRT focuses on the Black–White paradigm, LatCRT has moved to consider other racial groups, mainly Chicana/Chicanos, as well as Latinos/as, Asians, Native Americans/First Nations, and women of color.

    In Critical Race Counterstories along the Chicana/Chicano Educational Pipeline, Tara J. Yosso discusses how the constraint of POC can be defined. Looking at the differences between Chicana/o students, the tenets that separate such individuals are: the intercentricity of race and racism, the challenge of dominant ideology, the commitment to social justice, the centrality of experience knowledge, and the interdisciplinary perspective.

    LatCRTs main focus is to advocate social justice for those living in marginalized communities (specifically Chicana/os), who are guided by structural arrangements that disadvantage people of color. Social institutions function as dispossessions, disenfranchisement, and discrimination over minority groups, while LatCRT seeks to give voice to those who are victimized. In order to do so, LatCRT has created two common themes:

    First, CRT proposes that white supremacy and racial power are maintained over time, a process that the law plays a central role in. Different racial groups lack the voice to speak in this civil society, and, as such, CRT has introduced a new critical form of expressions, called the voice of color. The voice of color is narratives and storytelling monologues used as devices for conveying personal racial experiences. These are also used to counter metanarratives that continue to maintain racial inequality. Therefore, the experiences of the oppressed are important aspects for developing a LatCRT analytical approach, and it has not been since the rise of slavery that an institution has so fundamentally shaped the life opportunities of those who bear the label of criminal.

    Secondly, LatCRT work has investigated the possibility of transforming the relationship between law enforcement and racial power, as well as pursuing a project of achieving racial emancipation and anti-subordination more broadly. Its body of research is distinct from general critical race theory in that it emphasizes immigration theory and policy, language rights, and accent- and national origin-based forms of discrimination. CRT finds the experiential knowledge of people of color and draws explicitly from these lived experiences as data, presenting research findings through storytelling, chronicles, scenarios, narratives, and parables.

    AsianCrit

    AsianCrit looks at the influence of race and racism on the experiences and outcomes of Asian Americans in US education, providing a foundation for discourse around the racialized experiences of Asian Americans and other racially marginalized groups in education. Like LatCrit, AsianCrit is distinct from the main body of CRT in its emphasis on immigration theory and policy.

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    Prevention of mental disorders

    From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

    Prevention of mental disorders are measures that try to decrease the chances of a mental disorder occurring. A 2004 WHO report stated that "prevention of these disorders is obviously one of the most effective ways to reduce the [disease] burden." The 2011 European Psychiatric Association (EPA) guidance on prevention of mental disorders states "There is considerable evidence that various psychiatric conditions can be prevented through the implementation of effective evidence-based interventions." A 2011 UK Department of Health report on the economic case for mental health promotion and mental illness prevention found that "many interventions are outstandingly good value for money, low in cost and often become self-financing over time, saving public expenditure". In 2016, the National Institute of Mental Health re-affirmed prevention as a research priority area.

    Methods

    Parenting

    Parenting may affect the child's mental health, and evidence suggests that helping parents to be more effective with their children can address mental health needs.

    Assessing parenting capability has been raised in child protection and other contexts. Delaying of potential very young pregnancies could lead to better mental health causal risk factors such as improved parenting skills and more stable homes, and various approaches have been used to encourage such behaviour change. Some countries run conditional cash transfer welfare programs where payment is conditional on behaviour of the recipients. Compulsory contraception has been used to prevent future mental illness.

    Pre-emptive CBT

    Use of cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) with people at risk has significantly reduced the number of episodes of generalized anxiety disorder and other anxiety symptoms, and also given significant improvements in explanatory style, hopelessness, and dysfunctional attitudes. In 2014 the UK National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) recommended preventive CBT for people at risk of psychosis. As of 2018, some health providers now advocate pre-emptive use of CBT to prevent worsening of mental illnesses.

    Mental silence meditation

    Sahaja meditators scored above control groups for emotional well-being and mental health measures on SF-36 ratings, leading to proposed use for mental illness prevention, although this result could be due to meditators having other characteristics leading to good mental health, such as higher general self care.

    Internet- and mobile-based interventions

    A review found that a number of studies have shown that internet- and mobile-based interventions can be effective in preventing mental disorders.

    Other advice

    Many sources advocate helping one's mental health by actions such as good exercise, diet, sleep, social contacts and gratitude.

    Specific diseases

    Depression

    For depressive disorders, when people participated in interventions, some studies show the number of new cases is reduced by 22% to 38%. These interventions included CBT. Such interventions also save costs. Depression prevention continues to be called for.

    Anxiety

    For anxiety disorders,

    • use of cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) with people at risk has significantly reduced the number of episodes of generalized anxiety disorder and other anxiety symptoms, and also given significant improvements in explanatory style, hopelessness, and dysfunctional attitudes. Other interventions (parental inhibition reduction, behaviourism, parental modelling, problem-solving and communication skills) have also produced significant benefits. People with subthreshold panic disorder were found to benefit from use of CBT.
    • for older people, a stepped-care intervention (watchful waiting, CBT and medication if appropriate) achieved a 50% lower incidence rate of depression and anxiety disorders in a patient group aged 75 or older.
    • for younger people, it has been found that teaching CBT in schools reduced anxiety in children, and a review found that most universal, selective and indicated prevention programs are effective in reducing symptoms of anxiety in children and adolescents.
    • for university students mindfulness has been shown to reduce subsequent anxiety.

    Psychosis

    In those at high risk there is tentative evidence that psychosis incidence may be reduced with the use of CBT or other types of therapy. In 2014 the UK National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) recommended preventive CBT for people at risk of psychosis.

    There is also tentative evidence that treatment may help those with early symptoms. Antipsychotic medications are not recommended for preventing psychosis.

    For schizophrenia, one study of preventative CBT showed a positive effect and another showed neutral effect.

    Targeted vs universal

    There has been an historical trend among public health professionals to consider targeted programmes. However identification of high risk groups can increase stigma, in turn meaning that the targeted people do not engage. Thus policy recommends universal programs, with resources within such programs weighted towards high risk groups.

    Universal prevention (aimed at a population that has no increased risk for developing a mental disorder, such as school programs or mass media campaigns) need very high numbers of people to show effect (sometimes known as the "power" problem). Approaches to overcome this are (1) focus on high-incidence groups (e.g. by targeting groups with high risk factors), (2) use multiple interventions to achieve greater, and thus more statistically valid, effects, (3) use cumulative meta-analyses of many trials, and (4) run very large trials.

    History

    History of mental illness prevention strategies

    • In 2020 a US paper identified the need for prevention, and led with focus on preventing traumatic events and adverse childhood experiences. A European paper highlighted "addressing both poor parenting and children's maladaptive personality traits and insufficient life skills."
    • In 2019 the leading UK mental health NGOs produced a combined manifesto which had prevention as its first point. Mental Health Foundation produced a major strategy focus on prevention. What Works Centre for Wellbeing produced a report on wellbeing which included a focus on "Parents ability to support the healthy development of their children’s social and emotional skills."
    • In 2018 the University of Birmingham Mental Health Policy Commission focused on prevention, including the challenges of funding given the shortness of political cycles versus the longer paybacks of prevention.
    • In 2018 11 European researchers published a review of mental illness prevention stating that "Increasing evidence suggests that preventive interventions in psychiatry that are feasible, safe, and cost-effective could translate into a broader focus on prevention in our field." and that "Gaps between knowledge, policy, and practice need to be bridged."
    • In 2018 Massachusetts announced a mental health strategy including many prevention elements. The executive summary began "Behavioral health promotion and upstream prevention works."
    • In 2017 the OECD published an overview of the development of approaches to promoting mental wellbeing and preventing mental ill-health in OECD countries, together with an assessment of what is known on their effectiveness and cost effectiveness.
    • In 2017 the Australian Government funded a new Centre for Research Excellence in Prevention of Anxiety and Depression.
    • The US Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) advocates a 5-step prevention framework.
    • In 2016:
      • the UK NHS Mental Health Taskforce included 'preventing mental health' in its 3 Priorities, focusing on children and young ages, and the importance of employment.
      • the UK NGO Mental Health Foundation published a review of prevention approaches.
      • the UK NGO Mind produced public mental health recommendations for more prevention.
    • In 2015:
      • the Hunter Institute of mental health in Australia published its "Prevention First" strategic framework for prevention.
      • the UK NGO Mental Health Foundation published a review of prevention research, paving the way for prevention strategies.
      • the official journal of the World Psychiatric Association included a survey of public mental health which concluded "the evidence base for public mental health interventions is convincing, and the time is now ripe to move from knowledge to action".
    • In 2014 the UK Chief Medical Officer, Professor Dame Sally Davies, chose mental health for her major annual report, and included prevention of mental illness heavily in this.
    • In 2013 the Faculty of Public Health, the UK professional body for public health professionals, produced its "Better Mental Health for All" resource, which aims at "the promotion of mental wellbeing and the primary prevention of mental illness".
    • In 2012, Mind, the UK mental health NGO, included "Staying well; Support people likely to develop mental health problems, to stay well." as its first goal for 2012–16.
    • The 2011 mental health strategy of Manitoba (Canada) included intents to (i) reduce risk factors associated with mental ill-health and (ii) increase mental health promotion for both adults and children.
    • The 2011 US National Prevention Strategy included mental and emotional well-being, with recommendations including (i) better parenting and (ii) early intervention.
    • Australia's mental health plan for 2009–14 included "Prevention and Early Intervention" as priority 2.
    • The 2008 EU "Pact for Mental Health" made recommendations for youth and education including (i) promotion of parenting skills, (ii) integration of socio-emotional learning into education curricular and extracurricular activities, and (iii) early intervention throughout the educational system.
    • The 2006 Canadian "Out of the Shadows at last" included a section on prevention.

    History of mental illness prevention programmes

    Historically prevention has been a very small part of the spend of mental health systems. For instance the 2009 UK Department of Health analysis of prevention expenditure did not include any apparent spend on mental health. The situation is the same in research.

    However more recently some prevention programmes have been proposed or implemented. Prevention programmes can include public health policies to raise general health, creating supportive environments, strengthening communities, developing personal skills, and reorienting services.

    • In 2017 the UK PHE and LSE produced research showing short payback periods for a number of prevention interventions.
    • In 2017 the Scotland Mental Health Strategy included prevention, including a focus on improving parenting skills.
    • In 2016, the UK Education Policy Institute advocated prevention through increased mental health literacy, better parenting and improving children's resilience and digital world skills.
    • In 2013 the UK NGO Mental Health Foundation and partners began to use Video Interaction Guidance (VIG) in an early years intervention to reduce later life mental illness.
    • In 2013 in Australia the National Health and Medical Research Council supported a set of parenting strategies to prevent teenagers becoming anxious or depressed.
    • In 2012 the UK Schizophrenia Commission recommended "a preventative strategy for psychosis including promoting protective factors for mental wellbeing and reducing risks such as cannabis use in early adolescence."
    • In 2010 the European Union DataPrev database was launched. It states "A healthy start is crucial for mental health and wellbeing throughout life, with parenting being the single most important factor," and recommends a range of interventions.
    • In 2009 the US National Academies publication on preventing mental, emotional, and behavioral disorders among young people focused on recent research and program experience and stated that "A number of promotion and prevention programs are now available that should be considered for broad implementation." A 2011 review of this by the authors said "A scientific base of evidence shows that we can prevent many mental, emotional, and behavioral disorders before they begin" and made recommendations including
      • supporting the mental health and parenting skills of parents,
      • encouraging the developmental competencies of children and
      • using preventive strategies particularly for children at risk (such as children of parents with mental illness, or with family stresses such as divorce or job loss).

    In India the 1982 National Mental health Programme included prevention, but implementation has been slow, particularly of prevention elements.

    It is already known that home visiting programs for pregnant women and parents of young children can produce replicable effects on children's general health and development in a variety of community settings. Similarly positive benefits from social and emotional education are well proven. Research has shown that risk assessment and behavioral interventions in pediatric clinics reduced abuse and neglect outcomes for young children. Early childhood home visitation also reduced abuse and neglect, but results were inconsistent.

    Issues in implementation

    Prevention programs can face issues in (i) ownership, because health systems are typically targeted at current suffering, and (ii) funding, because program benefits come on longer timescales than the normal political and management cycle. Assembling collaborations of interested bodies appears to be an effective model for achieving sustained commitment and funding.

    Commentary

    In 2016 Mark Williamson, CEO of Action for Happiness said, regarding the increasing number of people being in treatment with mental illnesses, "What we believe is that you can help people develop better habits before that happens. We’ve got the beginnings now of a culture in preventative approaches to physical health problems, with anti-smoking and obesity drives. I think the next 20 years is going to be about massively proactive ways to look after your mental health and your social and emotional well-being, and to really think about what happiness means and how it can be achieved."

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