ABSTRACT
Among the English, some of the seeds of a racial worldview were in place long before they encountered peoples who were dramatically different from themselves in the New World and Africa. This chapter looks at several specific events and circumstances of English life and sociopolitical experiences that affected their views of other peoples. The chapter briefly considers aspects of Spanish culture that influenced English attitudes toward non-Europeans in the New World. In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, England experienced even larger population movements, exacerbated by the migrations of peasants displaced as a result of the enclosure movement. The vast majority of those converted remained Christian, and the acceptance of these ex-Jews and ex-Muslims and their descendants as legitimate members of the Catholic community and the state is in opposition to the tenets of modern race ideology, which precludes forever the possibility of such a transformation. The apparent contradiction between the realities of the alteration of social identity is under pressure.
