Three Races in the United States

Toqueville described three races of people that lived in the United States in Democracy in America. He notes the main obstacle between the three races in coming together as a society were education and law and where they originate from, which was apparent by their skin color.  Toqueville says that the whites are “superior in intelligence, in power and in enjoyment” and proud of their race, but oppressive to the Native Americans and African slaves. (Toqueville 216). He noted that the Negro has lost all ties to their African culture, language and family structure and are deprived of their basic humanity. Toqueville asserted that their status as a slave has made them inferior, ashamed and animalistic. His opinion of the Native Americans was that their life was easy and carefree before the Europeans came: they lost their traditions and culture and became more uncivilized and dangerous, yet remained very proud. Their pride was a downfall to the Native Americans in Toquville’s opinion, as it kept them from assimilating with the Europeans. Toqueville assessed that the Native Americans and African Americans were both disadvantaged equally – but in different ways, due to being taken advantage of and oppressed by whites. Toqueville talked about how Europeans treated Native Americans and African Americans similar to animals and either made them submissive or saw them as an enemy to rid themselves of. 

Toqueville noted that even in the free North, where the African Americans and whites existed in the same space, they stayed in difference spheres: they didn’t integrate with each other. Toqueville predicted that America would emerge into a civil war over the eventual disposition of slavery. He also predicted that the African Americans, once freed, would demand all the same rights as the whites and that would cause further conflict, since whites would not easily allow African Americans to have the same rights. Because of these problems of hostility of the African Americans and the whites towards each other, Toqueville predicted there could be a holocaust of one of the two races in the ensuing civil war. Toqueville stated that the institution of slavery and its connection with the color of the African Americans’ skin would be a disgrace to African Americans forever. Native Americans, on the other hand, he predicted would be wiped out by the time Manifest Destiny had come to fruition due to their pride and lack of desire to become “civilized” or to be assimilated to the European lifestyle and customs as well as the white people’s desire for more land and power. 

Toqueville had a fairly accurate idea of how things would play out in history. There was a civil war over the idea of abolition of slavery – a very bloody war. Although he wasn’t correct in his assertion that one group – African Americans or whites – would be killed off, it is noteworthy in the fact that “battle” between descendants of slaves and whites in this country has been in near constant conflict over rights, discrimination and other unfair treatment to this very day. Toqueville’s prediction that the Native Americans would not exist after the Europeans made their way to the Pacific Ocean was not completely accurate. There were and are some Indian nations and people still in existence. The majority of Native Americans and their tribes, native lands, customs, religions and family structures were for the most part obliterated. Some Indian tribes are only known now to history as they have been completely wiped out due to introduction of European diseases, war and forced removal.

Works Cited

De Toqueville, Alexis. "Alexis de Toqueville Describes the Three Races in the United States." To 1877, edited by Michael P. Johnson, 5th ed., Bedford/St. Martin's, 2012, pp. 216-19. 2 vols. Excerpt originally published in Democracy in America, 1835.