Tocqueville is unremittingly bleak in this section of the book. Why do you think he is he so pessimistic about the possibility of harmony between the ‘three races’ (by which he means people of European descent, people of African descent, and people descended from the Indian tribes*)? Do you think his pessimism has been borne out by American history since he wrote his book?
What do you think this case tells us about current relations between the three racial groups Tocqueville discusses?
*This last term was of course the operative term for many years for the various horticultural groups who were already here in North America when the Europeans arrived. They are now frequently called ‘indigenous Americans,’ but it seems to me this is at least as inaccurate a term as ‘Indians,’ since these people were neither Indians nor indigenous (i.e., native) to the Americas. They, like everyone else who wound up in the Americas, came from somewhere else, even if they came earlier than either of the other two racial groups in question–in their case, they came from Asia over the land bridge between Russia and Alaska. In fact, humans can reasonably be called ‘indigenous’ to only one place: sub-Saharan Africa, which is where H. sapiens originated and then radiated outward to the rest of the planet.