Benjamin Franklin and Colonial American Race Relations

[Aptrgangr]

Benjamin Franklin and Colonial American Race Relations

Found this Ben Franklin quote as I was doing reading:

Why should the Palatine boors [the Germans] be suffered to swarm into our settlements, and by herding together establish their language and manners to the exclusion of ours? Why should Pennsylvania, founded by the English, become a colony of aliens, who will soon be so numerous as to Germanize us instead of our anglifying them, and will never adopt our language or customs, any more than they can acquire our complexion.

Which leads me to one remark: That the number of purely white people in the world is proportionably very small. All Africa is black or tawny. Asia chiefly tawney. And in Europe the Spaniards, Italians, French, Russians and Swedes are generally of what we call a swarthy complexion; as are the Germans also, the Saxons only being excepted, who with the English make up the principal body of white people on the face of the earth. I could wish their numbers increased. While we are scouring our planet by clearing America of woods, and so making our side of the planet reflect a brighter light to the inhabitants of Mars or Venus, why should we in the sight of superior beings darken its people? Why increase the sons of Africa by planting them in America, where we have an opportunity, by excluding all blacks and tawneys, of increasing the lovely white and red.”

I find this quote interesting for a number of reasons. Franklin’s hatred of Germans and Scots-Irish people is well-known, but it is surprising to see how deeply ingrained in American history this kind of world-view is. What I also think is remarkable is the last sentence–is he referring to Indians [red] as lovely? Or does he mean pink-cheeked whites?

It seems to me that he is speaking about Indians–which catches us off guard today. It is hard to grasp the complexities of colonial society, wherein Franklin could could designate the French (”swarthy”) as racially different and relatively undesirable while referring to American Indians as “lovely.”
Not something you hear everyday, that’s for sure.

Benjamin Franklin and Colonial American Race Relations « The iPlosion

Franklin and Moralism

[Menydh]

Which leads me to one remark: That the number of purely white people in the world is proportionably very small. All Africa is black or tawny. Asia chiefly tawney. And in Europe the Spaniards, Italians, French, Russians and Swedes are generally of what we call a swarthy complexion; as are the Germans also, the Saxons only being excepted, who with the English make up the principal body of white people on the face of the earth. I could wish their numbers increased.

Think that this is the seed from where first the WASP supremacism and now WN supremacism grew. And which today they pretend to sell to all Europeans as some kind of brotherhood of fraternal love, only because the so-called White Anglo-Saxon Protestant are not enough to hold the tide that their own greed has created, and need of the "swarthies". Soon this will give another turn of the wheel and the situation will require that the definition of white is further extended to many others.

One logical possibility would be to one day open themselves to those who are closer to them in what would be America's self-styled ethnic concept (not ethnic at all, but given their records in deviating concepts, like eg. "nationalism" in "white nationalism"): the BASPs (Black Afro-Saxon Protestants). This may sound like a joke, but in fact they could appeal to an older right to the land against the newer arrivals of Afro-Caribbeans, Mexicans, and others.

They are pathetic by their own right.

While we are scouring our planet by clearing America of woods, and so making our side of the planet reflect a brighter light to the inhabitants of Mars or Venus

Strange justification for nature predation.

why should we in the sight of superior beings darken its people? Why increase the sons of Africa by planting them in America, where we have an opportunity, by excluding all blacks and tawneys, of increasing the lovely white and red.”

A signal for early WASPs and later WNs to miscegenate with the Native Americans?

[svin]

A signal for early WASPs and later WNs to miscegenate with the Native Americans?

Isn't he speaking of rosy complexion of English people?

[Menydh]

Originally Posted by svin

Isn't he speaking of rosy complexion of English people?

Like white for themselves and black for Afro-Americans, they've always used red for the Native Americans. Except for the "red-necks", which is an inferior social group of the WASP.

It is possible that he referred to some rosy tone of the cheeks but, do you think that he was getting that much into details?

[svin]

I'm not expert in American history, but it's strange that he is praising Indians, if he is indeed speaking of them.

[Errigal]

Originally Posted by svin

I'm not expert in American history, but it's strange that he is praising Indians, if he is indeed speaking of them.

I would say he is speaking of Indians. They were far stronger culturally and militarily in Franklin's time.

[Aptrgangr]

I found this interesting quote:

Benjamin Franklin, 1787: Warning of the Americans before the Jews

Benjamin Franklin, who was one of the six founding fathers designated to draw up The Declaration of Independence, spoke before the Constitutional Congress in May 1787, and asked that Jews be barred from immigrating to America. The following are his exact words as quoted from the diary of General Charles Pickney of Charleston, S.C.:

“… In whatever country Jews have settled in any great numbers, they have lowered its moral tone; depreciated its commercial integrity; have segregated themselves and have not been assimilated; have sneered at and tried to undermine the Christian religion upon which that nation is founded by objecting to its restrictions; have built up a state within a state; and when opposed have tried to strangle that country to death financially, as in the case of Spain and Portugal. For over 1700 years the Jews have been bewailing their sad fate in that they have been exiled from their homeland, they call Palestine. But, Gentlemen, should the world today give it to them in fee simple, they would at once find some cogent reason for not returning. Why? Because they are vampires, and vampires do not live on vampires. They cannot live only among themselves. They must subsist on Christians and other people not of their race. If you do not exclude them from these United States, in this Constitution in less than 200 years they will have swarmed in such great numbers that they will dominate and devour the land, and change our form of government for which we Americans have shed our blood, given our lives, our substance, and jeopardized our liberty.
If you do not exclude them, in less than 200 years our descendants will be working in the fields to furnish them sustenance, while they will be in the counting houses rubbing their hands. I warn you, Gentlemen, if you do not exclude the Jews for all time, your children will curse you in your graves. Jews, Gentlemen, are Asiatics; let them be born where they will, or how many generations they are away from Asia, they will never be otherwise. Their ideas do not conform to an American’s, and will not even though they live among us ten generations. A leopard cannot change its spots. Jews are Asiatics, they are a menace to this country if permitted entrance and should be excluded by this Constitution.”

[Menydh]

and when opposed have tried to strangle that country to death financially, as in the case of Spain and Portugal.

This is much true. However they would have not had any success without help from others.