Includes bibliographical references (pages 381-414) and index.

"A study of the roots of America's racism that examines the Spanish, Portuguese, English, and French colonial movements of the Age of Discovery, focusing on the explorers' perceptions of the native races they encountered in Africa and the Americas. The racial attitudes that would govern the fate of Blacks and [Native Americans] on American soil were forged in this area. This book is the first study to place this confrontation squarely at the center of a history of racism in American civilization... Sanders is at all times sensitive to the myriad cultural and religious strains -- Christian, Judaic, folkloric, mystical -- that informed the Europeans' first and subsequent reactions to other races."--From book jacket.

SACFinal081324