ABSTRACT
Modern systems of racist power emerge from the apocalyptic thought of the early modern period. Biblical apocalyptic works envision a time in the future when social differentiation will not exist in any meaningful way between those humans that God has elected to live as his eternal subjects. Apocalyptic racialization is as much a means for those claiming hegemonic dominion to create affirmative racial self-descriptions, as it is a means to create negative racial fictions of others to justify dispossessing or killing them. In the early modern colonial context, the segregationist and assimilationist contours of apocalyptic racism are defined by the pursuit of supremacy—the social, political, and mercantile dominance by one ethno-national group. Spanish missionaries viewed baptism and catechism as a crucial step toward Amerindians’ cultivation. This chapter also provides an overview of this book.
