Introduction
White nationalism can be defined as a movement or an ideology, cultural or political, that looks at the representatives of the white race as the preferred carriers of the national identity. At the same time, the white race is considered to be at the center of the historical development of the country. The last three decades of the 19th century marked the beginning of the white nationalist era, as it was born to confront the indigenous peoples of America and the immigrant populations. White nationalism prevailed in the 1870s-1900s, which can be proved by the governmental policies against Indians and new immigrants and the existing popular movements against new immigrants of the time.
Evidence of Thriving White Nationalism in the 1870s-1900s
Governmental Treatment of Native Americans
The governmental policies that were dictated by the white nationalist ideology were a good example of white nationalism in the country. These policies were directed against immigrants and Native Americans. Historically, America’s indigenous populations were persecuted from the beginning of European settlement on the continent, and they were always discriminated against.
However, in the last decades of the nineteenth century, discrimination and persecution on the governmental level were especially severe. The policy of that time consisted of forced assimilation aimed at eliminating the Indians altogether. In one of the governmental campaigns of the period, children were forcibly removed from their parents and put into boarding schools. The slogan of this campaign was “Kill the Indian, Save the Man.” This policy was meant to replace the Indian culture with the white European culture completely and was a clear demonstration of white nationalism seeking to eradicate non-white influences.
Governmental Treatment of ‘New’ Immigrants
Some governmental policies were also concerned with the New Immigration. At the end of the 19th century, more immigrants started coming to America. Those immigrants mostly came from Europe, so they did not present a threat to America’s white identity. However, there was also an important wave of Chinese immigrants, and one of the nationalist policies was to restrict their immigration to the country, such as the 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act. Such laws fueled white nationalism as an ideology in the following years.
In the last three decades of the nineteenth century, the prevailing idea was that white people were the only owners of America, and the country’s history and culture belonged solely to the white nation. The manifestations of this idea were the emerging white nationalist movement in many parts of the country. The core ideas of those movements consisted of the existing prejudices against immigrant people and immigration as a phenomenon as a whole, opposition to granting rights to the Native Americans, and violence against non-white people. The white nationalist movement was widespread throughout the country and accepted by many white segments of the population, and this movement was also considerably centralized and organized.
The embodiment of the white nationalism of the time can be considered the nativist movement. Its goal was the protection of America’s white identity. Those who belonged to this movement believed that America must always belong to white people only. New immigrants who were not white were dangerous for preserving country’s white identity and thus, they needed to be resisted. Nativists believed in the superiority of the white race and its right to dominate in the country.
Conclusion
To conclude, white nationalism was a prevalent ideology in the last decades of the nineteenth century in American history. This movement was reflected in the governmental policies that discriminated against Native populations and were aimed at eradicating the Indian identity altogether. The political and social movements that became widely popular among America’s white population also demonstrated the rise of white nationalism as opposition to non-white immigration.
References
- Kliewer, Addison., Mahmud, Mahmud, Wayland, Brooklyn. “Kill the Indian, Save the Man”: Remembering the stories of Indian boarding schools.” Gaylord News. Web.
- Anderson, Kristen L. Immigration in American History. Taylor & Francis, 2021, 50.
- Schofield, Camilla, Geary, Daniel, Sutton, Jennifer. Global white nationalism: From apartheid to Trump. Manchester University Press, 2020, 101.
- Ritter, Luke. Inventing America’s first immigration crisis: Political Nativism in the Antebellum West. Fordham University Press, 2020, 76.