Description
“A servant of servants shall he be unto his brethren.” So reads Noah’s curse on his son Ham, and all his descendants, in Genesis nine:25. Over centuries of interpretation, Ham came to be identified because the ancestor of black Africans, and Noah’s curse to be seen as biblical justification for American slavery and segregation. Examining the history of the American interpretation of Noah’s curse, this book begins with an outline of the prior history of the reception of this scripture after which turns to the unique and artistic tactics during which the curse was once appropriated by American professional-slavery and professional-segregation interpreters.