Charles Boxer and the Race Equivoque 1

Abstract

Charles Boxer's Race Relations in the Portuguese Colonial Empire, 1415–1825, which came out nearly half a century ago, has found a readership beyond the circle of those interested in the history of Portuguese overseas expansion. Boxer was perfectly conscious, as he produced it, of the impact his essay would have. He found in the discourse of race an instrument of mediation that allowed him to continue to develop his favoured topics of research in the United States in the 1960s and 1970s. The response to Boxer's book points to the highly charged atmosphere that continues to surround all debates concerning ‘race’ and, in particular, those that compare North American notions of race with those that can be observed elsewhere in the world. This chapter attempts to shed new light on what caused such a longstanding cross-cultural misinterpretation.