The Making of American Whiteness provides compelling correctives to received notions regarding the origins of institutionalized white supremacy. By shedding new light on a wide array of period documents within the context of transatlantic slavery, Thompson shows that conceptions in early Virginia of West African peoples as inherently worthy of enslavement already went hand in hand with a collective European self-conception as not only superior, but also implicitly white. With its deep dives into such disparate realms as gender relations, built environments, and the maintenance of West African modes of resistance, this book will instruct and fascinate students and scholars working on not only the origins of American racial formations, but also their obstinately enduring manifestations.

Tim Engles, Eastern Illinois University

A highly original challenge to the traditional historiographical wisdom on the North American origins of racial slavery and whiteness in colonial Virginia. Thompson has put together an unequalled archive on the subject of how "race" operated in the period before Bacon’s Rebellion and policy changes made racial distinctions emerge with much greater clarity and elaboration. Subtle and deeply gendered, the project also draws insight and energy from Thompson’s study of very different forms of slavery in Africa. She places Virginia in a network of slave-trading transnationally in a way that brings into useful question the idea of an "invention" of race there.

David Roediger, author of How Race Survived U.S. History