Montesquieu

OF THE SLAVERY OF THE NEGROES

Were I to vindicate our right to make slaves of the negroes, these should be my arguments:

The Europeans, having extirpated the Americans, were obliged to make slaves of the Africans, for clearing such vast tracts of land.

Sugar would be too dear if the plants which produce it were cultivated by any other than slaves.

These creatures are all over black, and with such a flat nose that they can scarcely be pitied.

It is hardly to be believed that God, who is a wise Being, should place a soul, specially a good soul, in such a black ugly body.

It is so natural to look upon color as the criterion of human nature, that the Asiatics, among whon eunuchs are employed, always deprive the blacks of their resemblance to us by a more opprobrious distincition.

The colour of the skin may be determined by that of the hair, which, among the Egyptians, the best phylosophers in the world, was of such importance that they put to death all the red-haired men who fell into their hands.

The negroes prefer a glass necklace to that gold which polite nations so highly value. Can there be a greater proof their wanting common sense? 

It is impossible for us to suppose these creatures to be men, because, allowing them to be men, a suspicion would follow that we ourselves are not Christians.

Weak minds exaggerate too much the wrong done to the Africans. For were the case as they state it, would the European powers, who make so many needless conventions among themselves, have failed to enter into a general one, in behalf of humanity and compassion?

Montesquieu, The Spirit of Laws, translated by Thomas Nugent, revised by J. V. Prichard. Based on a public domain edition published in 1914 by G. Bell & Sons Ltd., London. Integral text: http://www.constitution.org/cm/sol.txt

racism

CULTURING EQUALITY