Techno-Prosthetic Romantic FuturismRattle the ChattleBritain had little use for racial discourse prior to the abolition movement, at least regarding African slaves. [1] They entered the culture as property. It would make no more sense to define them as a separate race than to so designate chickens, or chairs, or tobacco, or nails. Africans first acquired legal status in "The Act for Better Ordering and Governing of the Negores" of 1661 by the Assembly of Barbados. They acquired it as property. The Act makes no mention of race, which at that moment lacks viability as a legal term in Britain. [2] But as chattel negroes could legally be whipped, branded, mutilated. They shoot horses, don't they? Notes1. Racial others included Monguls, New World Indians, even Africans, although they were usually referred to not as races but as nations or tribes. For an instance of the flexibility of racist discourse to adapt to new and necessary others, see Noel Ignatiev, How the Irish Became Black (London: Routledge, 1996). 2. See Hilary Beckles, Black Rebellion in Barbados: The Struggle Against Slavery, 1627-1838 (Bridgetown: Antilles, 1984). Navigation |