The Dawning of the Apocalypse: The Roots of Slavery, White Supremacy, Settler Colonialism, and Capitalism in the Long Sixteenth Century

August 2019 saw numerous commemorations of the year 1619, when what was said to be the first arrival of enslaved Africans occurred in North America. Yet in the 1520s, the Spanish, from their imperial perch in Santo Domingo, had already brought enslaved Africans to what was to become South Carolina. The enslaved people here quickly defected to local Indigenous populations and compelled their captors to flee.

The Dawning of the Apocalypse is a riveting revision of the “creation myth” of settler colonialism and how the United States was formed. Here, Gerald Horne argues forcefully that, in order to understand the arrival of colonists from the British Isles in the early 17th century, one must first understand the “long 16th century”—from 1492 until the arrival of settlers in Virginia in 1607.

During this prolonged century, Horne contends, “whiteness” morphed into “white supremacy.” That allowed England to co-opt not only religious minorities but also various nationalities throughout Europe, forging a muscular bloc that was needed to confront rambunctious Indigenes and Africans.

In retelling the bloodthirsty story of the invasion of the Americas, Horne recounts how the fierce resistance by Africans and their Indigenous allies weakened Spain and enabled London to dispatch settlers to Virginia in 1607. These settlers laid the groundwork for the British Empire and its "revolting spawn" that became the United States of America.