118-689: Millsap or Millsaps is a surname of English and Irish origin. Derived from a nickname for a "spiritless man", the name is borrowed from Middle English for milksop , meaning "piece of bread soaked in milk". It has been suggested that it may have been an occupational name for a farmer who dealt with milk products. A variant, Millsop , is also derived from similar origins, and is found in County Armagh and County Down in Ulster . English people Modern ethnicities The English people are an ethnic group and nation native to England , who speak
236-691: A White or West Eurasian race among a small set of human races and imputed physical, mental, or aesthetic superiority to this White category. These ideas were discredited by twentieth-century scientists. In 1758, Carl Linnaeus proposed what he considered to be natural taxonomic categories of the human species. He distinguished between Homo sapiens and Homo sapiens europaeus , and he later added four geographical subdivisions of humans: white Europeans , red Americans , yellow Asians and black Africans . Although Linnaeus intended them as objective classifications, his descriptions of these groups included cultural patterns and derogatory stereotypes. In 1775,
354-572: A racial designation," and that the replacement of White with yellow as a description came through pseudoscientific discourse. A three-part racial scheme in color terms was used in seventeenth-century Latin America under Spanish rule. Irene Silverblatt traces "race thinking" in South America to the social categories of colonialism and state formation : "White, black, and brown are abridged, abstracted versions of colonizer, slave, and colonized." By
472-663: A Roman garrison at Aballava , now Burgh-by-Sands , in Cumbria: a 4th-century inscription says that the Roman military unit "Numerus Maurorum Aurelianorum" ("unit of Aurelian Moors") from Mauretania (Morocco) was stationed there. Although the Roman Empire incorporated peoples from far and wide, genetic studies suggest the Romans did not significantly mix into the British population. The exact nature of
590-472: A definite Scottish influence in that region, while the Canterbury Association recruited settlers from the south of England, creating a definite English influence over that region. In the 1870s, MP Julius Vogel borrowed millions of pounds from Britain to help fund capital development such as a nationwide rail system, lighthouses, ports, and bridges, and encouraged mass migration from Britain. By 1870
708-627: A geographic area brings protests, especially from the Scotch . However, although Taylor believed this blurring effect was dying out, in his book The Isles: A History (1999), Norman Davies lists numerous examples in history books of "British" still being used to mean "English" and vice versa. In December 2010, Matthew Parris in The Spectator , analysing the use of "English" over "British", argued that English identity, rather than growing, had existed all along but has recently been unmasked from behind
826-697: A greater extent than their white counterparts; however, groups such as the Campaign for an English Parliament (CEP) suggest the emergence of a broader civic and multi-ethnic English nationhood. Scholars and journalists have noted a rise in English self-consciousness, with increased use of the English flag , particularly at football matches where the Union flag was previously more commonly flown by fans. This perceived rise in English self-consciousness has generally been attributed to
944-450: A large statistical spread in all cases. However, the authors noted that the similarity observed between the various sample groups was likely to be due to more recent internal migration. Another 2016 study conducted using evidence from burials found in northern England, found that a significant genetic difference was present in bodies from the Iron Age and the Roman period on the one hand, and
1062-457: A majority of respondents thought that being English was not dependent on race. 77% of white respondents in England agreed that "Being English is open to people of different ethnic backgrounds who identify as English", whereas 14% were of the view that "Only people who are white count as truly English". Amongst ethnic minority respondents, the equivalent figures were 68% and 19%. Research has found that
1180-597: A native British "North Atlantic" population and a Danish-like population. While much of the latter signature was attributed to the earlier settlement of the Anglo-Saxons, it was calculated that up to 6% of it could have come from Danish Vikings, with a further 4% contribution from a Norwegian-like source representing the Norwegian Vikings. The study also found an average 18% admixture from a source further south in Europe, which
1298-503: A number of Indo-European languages , but these differences were not necessarily used in respect to skin colors. Religious conversion was sometimes described figuratively as a change in skin color. Similarly, the Rigveda uses krsna tvac "black skin" as a metaphor for irreligiosity. Ancient Egyptians, Mycenaean Greeks and Minoans generally depicted women as having pale or white skin while men were depicted as dark brown or tanned. As
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#17330934651591416-402: A parliament being established. Krishan Kumar notes that support for measures to ensure that only English MPs can vote on legislation that applies only to England is generally higher than that for the establishment of an English parliament, although support for both varies depending on the timing of the opinion poll and the wording of the question. Electoral support for English nationalist parties
1534-735: A professor of English at the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee : Before the age of exploration, group differences were largely based on language, religion, and geography. ... the European had always reacted a bit hysterically to the differences of skin color and facial structure between themselves and the populations encountered in Africa, Asia, and the Americas (see, for example, Shakespeare's dramatization of racial conflict in Othello and The Tempest ). Beginning in
1652-507: A racial or social grouping, from a diverse and often conflicting range of political and cultural perspectives; in anti-racism activism in France, from right-wing political dialogue or propaganda, and other sources. Whites in France have been studied with regard the group's historical involvement in French colonialism ; how "whites in France have played a major international role in colonizing areas of
1770-473: A result, men with pale or light skin, leukochrōs (λευκόχρως, "white-skinned") could be considered weak and effeminate by Ancient Greek writers such as Plato and Aristotle . According to Aristotle "Those whose skin is too dark are cowardly: witness Egyptians and the Ethiopians. Those whose skin is too light are equally cowardly: witness women. The skin color typical of the courageous should be halfway between
1888-463: A rise in English self-awareness. This is linked to the expressions of national self-awareness of the other British nations of Wales, Scotland and, to some extent, Northern Ireland which take their most solid form in the new devolved political arrangements within the United Kingdom ;– and the waning of a shared British national identity with the growing distance between the end of
2006-627: A separate ethnic identity, others have assimilated and intermarried with the English. Since Oliver Cromwell 's resettlement of the Jews in 1656, there have been waves of Jewish immigration from Russia in the 19th century and from Germany in the 20th. After the French king Louis XIV declared Protestantism illegal in 1685 in the Edict of Fontainebleau , an estimated 50,000 Protestant Huguenots fled to England. Due to sustained and sometimes mass emigration of
2124-651: A separate people from the English. This separation was enshrined when Alfred the Great signed the Treaty of Alfred and Guthrum to establish the Danelaw, a division of England between English and Danish rule, with the Danes occupying northern and eastern England. However, Alfred's successors subsequently won military victories against the Danes, incorporating much of the Danelaw into the nascent kingdom of England. Danish invasions continued into
2242-610: A shift towards greater use of White as a legal category alongside a hardening of restrictions on free or Christian blacks. White remained a more familiar term in the American colonies than in Britain well into the 1700s, according to historian Theodore W. Allen . Western studies of race and ethnicity in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries developed into what would later be termed scientific racism . Prominent European pseudoscientists writing about human and natural difference included
2360-478: A test for admittance, a test used in practice to exclude people from Asia, Africa, and some European and South American countries, depending on the political climate. Although they were not the prime targets of the policy, it was not until after World War II that large numbers of southern European and eastern European immigrants were admitted for the first time. Following this, the White Australia Policy
2478-542: A veneer of Britishness. English people, like most Europeans, largely descend from three distinct lineages: Mesolithic hunter-gatherers , descended from a Cro-Magnon population that arrived in Europe about 45,000 years ago; Neolithic farmers who migrated from Anatolia during the Neolithic Revolution 9,000 years ago; and Yamnaya Steppe pastoralists who expanded into Europe from the Pontic–Caspian steppe in
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#17330934651592596-464: Is also low, even though there is public support for many of the policies they espouse. The English Democrats gained just 64,826 votes in the 2010 UK general election , accounting for 0.3 per cent of all votes cast in England. Kumar argued in 2010 that "despite devolution and occasional bursts of English nationalism – more an expression of exasperation with the Scots or Northern Irish – the English remain on
2714-620: Is now made to classify people according to skin color. As at the 2016 census, it was estimated by the Australian Human Rights Commission that around 58% of the Australian population were Anglo-Celtic Australians with 18% being of other European origins, a total of 76% for European ancestries as a whole. According to the 2023 New Zealand census 67.8% or 3,383,742 people identified with a European ethnic origin, down from 70.2% in 2018, and 90.6% in 1966 . In 1926 , 95.0% of
2832-539: Is occasionally found in Greco-Roman ethnography and other ancient or medieval sources, but these societies did not have any notion of a White race or pan-European identity. The term "White race" or "White people", defined by their light skin among other physical characteristics, entered the major European languages in the later seventeenth century, when the concept of a "unified White" achieved greater acceptance in Europe , in
2950-612: Is usually termed "elite dominance". The second process is explained through incentives, such as the Wergild outlined in the law code of Ine of Wessex which produced an incentive to become Anglo-Saxon or at least English speaking. Historian Malcolm Todd writes, "It is much more likely that a large proportion of the British population remained in place and was progressively dominated by a Germanic aristocracy, in some cases marrying into it and leaving Celtic names in the, admittedly very dubious, early lists of Anglo-Saxon dynasties. But how we identify
3068-634: Is where they lived. Herodotus described the Scythian Budini as having deep blue eyes and bright red hair and the Egyptians – quite like the Colchians – as melánchroes ( μελάγχροες , " dark-skinned ") and curly-haired . He also gives the possibly first reference to the common Greek name of the tribes living south of Egypt, otherwise known as Nubians , which was Aithíopes ( Αἰθίοπες , "burned-faced"). Later Xenophanes of Colophon described
3186-630: The Xanthochroi or "light Whites" of Northern Europe with the Melanochroi or "dark Whites" of the Mediterranean. Although modern neo-Nazis often invoke Nazi iconography on behalf of White nationalism , Nazi Germany repudiated the idea of a unified White race, instead promoting Nordicism . In Nazi propaganda, Eastern European Slavs were often referred to as Untermensch (subhuman in English), and
3304-560: The Aethiopians as black and the Thracians as having red hair and blue eyes. In his description of the Scythians, Hippocrates states that the cold weather "burns their white skin and turns it ruddy." The term "White race" or "White people" entered the major European languages in the later seventeenth century, originating with the racialization of slavery at the time, in the context of
3422-590: The Anglo-Saxons , a group of closely related Germanic tribes that began migrating to eastern and southern Britain, from southern Denmark and northern Germany, in the 5th century AD, after the Romans had withdrawn from Britain . The Anglo-Saxons gave their name to England ("Engla land", meaning "Land of the Angles") and to the English. The Anglo-Saxons arrived in a land that was already populated by people commonly referred to as
3540-588: The Atlantic slave trade and the enslavement of indigenous peoples in the Spanish Empire . It has repeatedly been ascribed to strains of blood, ancestry, and physical traits, and was eventually made into a subject of pseudoscientific research, which culminated in scientific racism , which was later widely repudiated by the scientific community. According to historian Irene Silverblatt, "Race thinking… made social categories into racial truths." Bruce David Baum, citing
3658-544: The British Empire and the present. Many recent immigrants to England have assumed a solely British identity, while others have developed dual or mixed identities. Use of the word "English" to describe Britons from ethnic minorities in England is complicated by most non-white people in England identifying as British rather than English. In their 2004 Annual Population Survey , the Office for National Statistics compared
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3776-584: The English language , a West Germanic language, and share a common ancestry, history, and culture. The English identity began with the Anglo-Saxons , when they were known as the Angelcynn , meaning race or tribe of the Angles . Their ethnonym is derived from the Angles, one of the Germanic peoples who invaded Britain around the 5th century AD. The English largely descend from two main historical population groups:
3894-546: The France national football team after he suggested that 7 of the 23-player squad were White. In 2020, French politician Nadine Morano stated that French actress Aïssa Maïga , who was born in Senegal , should "go back to Africa " if she "was not happy with seeing so many white people in France". According to the 2022 Irish census, 4,444,145 or 87.4% of the total population declared their race as “ White Irish ” and Other White, this
4012-517: The INED and INSEE for Whites in France has been analyzed, from some academic perspectives, as masking racial issues within the country, or a form of false racial color blindness . Writing for Al Jazeera , French journalist Rokhaya Diallo suggests that "a large portion of White people in France are not used to having frank conversations about race and racism." According to political sociologist Eduardo Bonilla-Silva , "whites in France lie to themselves and
4130-626: The Irish , current estimates indicate that around 6 million people in the UK have at least one grandparent born in the Republic of Ireland. There has been a small black presence in England since the 16th century due to the slave trade , and a small Indian presence since at least the 17th century because of the East India Company and British Raj . Black and Asian populations have only grown throughout
4248-606: The Treaty of Union . The Parliament of Scotland had previously passed its own Act of Union, so the Kingdom of Great Britain was born on 1 May 1707. In 1801, another Act of Union formed a union between the Kingdom of Great Britain and the Kingdom of Ireland , creating the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland . In 1922, about two-thirds of the Irish population (those who lived in 26 of
4366-706: The devolution in the late 1990s of some powers to the Scottish Parliament and National Assembly for Wales . In policy areas for which the devolved administrations in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland have responsibility, the UK Parliament votes on laws that consequently only apply to England. Because the Westminster Parliament is composed of MPs from throughout the United Kingdom, this has given rise to
4484-589: The naturalist Johann Friedrich Blumenbach asserted that "The white color holds the first place, such as is that of most European peoples. The redness of the cheeks in this variety is almost peculiar to it: at all events it is but seldom to be seen in the rest". In the various editions of his On the Natural Variety of Mankind , he categorized humans into four or five races, largely built on Linnaeus' classifications. But while, in 1775, he had grouped into his "first and most important" race "Europe, Asia this side of
4602-504: The " Nubians " and the "fair-skinned Libyans ". The Egyptians are depicted as considerably darker-skinned than the Levantines (persons from what is now Lebanon , Israel , Palestine and Jordan ) and Libyans, but considerably lighter than the Nubians (modern Sudan ). The assignment of positive and negative connotations of White and Black to certain persons date to the very old age in
4720-464: The " Romano-British "—the descendants of the native Brittonic-speaking population that lived in the area of Britain under Roman rule during the 1st–5th centuries AD. The multi-ethnic nature of the Roman Empire meant that small numbers of other peoples may have also been present in England before the Anglo-Saxons arrived. There is archaeological evidence, for example, of an early North African presence in
4838-462: The " West Lothian question ", a reference to the situation in which MPs representing constituencies outside England can vote on matters affecting only England, but MPs cannot vote on the same matters in relation to the other parts of the UK. Consequently, groups such as the CEP have called for the creation of a devolved English Parliament , claiming that there is now a discriminatory democratic deficit against
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4956-422: The " degenerative hypothesis " of racial origins. He claimed that Adam and Eve were Caucasian inhabitants of Asia, and that other races came about by degeneration from environmental factors such as the sun and poor diet. He consistently believed that the degeneration could be reversed in a proper environmental control and that all contemporary forms of man could revert to the original Caucasian race . Between
5074-552: The 11th century, and there were both English and Danish kings in the period following the unification of England (for example, Æthelred II (978–1013 and 1014–1016) was English but Cnut (1016–1035) was Danish). Gradually, the Danes in England came to be seen as 'English'. They had a noticeable impact on the English language: many English words, such as anger , ball , egg , got , knife , take , and they , are of Old Norse origin , and place names that end in -thwaite and -by are Scandinavian in origin. The English population
5192-583: The 1500s, Europeans began to develop what became known as "scientific racism," the attempt to construct a biological rather than cultural definition of race ... Whiteness, then, emerged as what we now call a "pan-ethnic" category, as a way of merging a variety of European ethnic populations into a single "race" ... . In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, "East Asian peoples were almost uniformly described as White, never as yellow." Michael Keevak's history Becoming Yellow , finds that East Asians were redesignated as being yellow-skinned because "yellow had become
5310-540: The 32 counties of Ireland), left the United Kingdom to form the Irish Free State . The remainder became the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, although this name was not introduced until 1927, after some years in which the term "United Kingdom" had been little used. Throughout the history of the UK, the English have been dominant in population and in political weight. As a consequence, notions of 'Englishness' and 'Britishness' are often very similar. At
5428-522: The Anglo-Saxon period on the other. Samples from modern-day Wales were found to be similar to those from the Iron Age and Roman burials, while samples from much of modern England, East Anglia in particular, were closer to the Anglo-Saxon-era burial. This was found to demonstrate a "profound impact" from the Anglo-Saxon migrations on the modern English gene pool, though no specific percentages were given in
5546-592: The Australian colonies, Great Britain and Ireland, Germany (forming the next biggest immigrant group after the British and Irish), France, Portugal, the Netherlands, Denmark, the United States, and Canada. In the 1860s, the discovery of gold started a gold rush in Otago. By 1860 more than 100,000 British and Irish settlers lived throughout New Zealand. The Otago Association actively recruited settlers from Scotland, creating
5664-577: The Caucasian label, while Thomas Henry Huxley (1870) classified the same populations as Mongoloid, and Lothrop Stoddard (1920) classified as " brown " most of the populations of the Middle East , North Africa and Central Asia, and counted as "White" only the European peoples and their descendants, as well as some populations in parts of Anatolia and the northern areas of Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia. Some authorities, following Huxley (1870), distinguished
5782-542: The Dutch. The discovery of diamonds and gold led to a greater influx of English speakers who were able to develop the mining industry with capital unavailable to Afrikaners. They have been joined in more subsequent decades by former colonials from elsewhere, such as Zambia and Kenya , and poorer British nationals looking to escape famine at home. Both Afrikaners and English have been politically dominant in South Africa during
5900-416: The English language became more important even in the court, and the Normans were gradually assimilated, until, by the 14th century, both rulers and subjects regarded themselves as English and spoke the English language. Despite the assimilation of the Normans, the distinction between 'English' and 'French' people survived in some official documents long after it had fallen out of common use, in particular in
6018-578: The English. The establishment of an English parliament has also been backed by a number of Scottish and Welsh nationalists. Writer Paul Johnson has suggested that like most dominant groups, the English have only demonstrated interest in their ethnic self-definition when they were feeling oppressed. John Curtice argues that "In the early years of devolution...there was little sign" of an English backlash against devolution for Scotland and Wales, but that more recently survey data shows tentative signs of "a form of English nationalism...beginning to emerge among
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#17330934651596136-420: The Ganges, and all the country situated to the north of the Amoor, together with that part of North America, which is nearest both in position and character of the inhabitants", he somewhat narrows his "Caucasian variety" in the third edition of his text, of 1795: "To this first variety belong the inhabitants of Europe (except the Lapps and the remaining descendants of the Finns) and those of Eastern Asia, as far as
6254-576: The Iberian Bell Beakers, but appeared to be an offshoot of the Corded Ware single grave people, as developed in Western Europe. It is currently unknown whether these Beaker peoples went on to develop Celtic languages in the British Isles , or whether later Celtic migrations introduced Celtic languages to Britain. The close genetic affinity of these Beaker people to Continental North Europeans means that British and Irish populations cluster genetically very closely with other Northwest European populations, regardless of how much Anglo-Saxon and Viking ancestry
6372-423: The Kushites of Upper Nubia. We know the Egyptians were not oblivious to skin color, however, because artists paid attention to it in their works of art, to the extent that the pigments at the time permitted. The Ancient Egyptian ( New Kingdom ) funerary text known as the Book of Gates distinguishes "four groups" in a procession. These are the Egyptians , the Levantine and Canaanite peoples or "Asiatics",
6490-504: The UK generally, as immigration from the British Empire and the subsequent Commonwealth of Nations was encouraged due to labour shortages during post World War II rebuilding. However, these groups are often still considered to be ethnic minorities and research has shown that black and Asian people in the UK are more likely to identify as British rather than with one of the state's four constituent nations, including England. A nationally representative survey published in June 2021 found that
6608-400: The UK, it is also "problematic for the English [...] when it comes to conceiving of their national identity. It tells of the difficulty that most English people have of distinguishing themselves, in a collective way, from the other inhabitants of the British Isles". In 1965, the historian A. J. P. Taylor wrote, When the Oxford History of England was launched a generation ago, "England"
6726-415: The UK. In his study of English identity, Krishan Kumar describes a common slip of the tongue in which people say "English, I mean British". He notes that this slip is normally made only by the English themselves and by foreigners: "Non-English members of the United Kingdom rarely say 'British' when they mean 'English ' ". Kumar suggests that although this blurring is a sign of England's dominant position with
6844-493: The United Kingdom . The majority of people living in England are British citizens. In the Acts of Union 1707 , the Kingdom of England and the Kingdom of Scotland merged to become the Kingdom of Great Britain . Over the years, English customs and identity have become fairly closely aligned with British customs and identity in general. The demonyms for men and women from England are Englishman and Englishwoman. England itself has no devolved government. The 1990s witnessed
6962-428: The United Kingdom. Wales was annexed by England by the Laws in Wales Acts 1535–1542 , which incorporated Wales into the English state. A new British identity was subsequently developed when James VI of Scotland became James I of England as well, and expressed the desire to be known as the monarch of Britain. In 1707, England formed a union with Scotland by passing an Act of Union in March 1707 that ratified
7080-471: The United States, Canada, Australia, South Africa and New Zealand. In the 2020 United States census , English Americans were the largest group in the United States with 46.5 million Americans self-identifying as having some English origins (many combined with another heritage) representing (19.8%) of the White American population. This includes 25.5 million (12.5%) who were "English alone" - one origin. However, demographers regard this as an undercount, as
7198-442: The West Germanic tribes, including the Angles, Saxons , and Jutes who settled in Southern Britain following the withdrawal of the Romans , and the partially Romanised Celtic Britons who already lived there. Collectively known as the Anglo-Saxons , they founded what was to become the Kingdom of England by the 10th century, in response to the invasion and extensive settlement of Danes and other Norsemen that began in
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#17330934651597316-417: The arrival of the Anglo-Saxons and their relationship with the Romano-British is a matter of debate. The traditional view is that a mass invasion by various Anglo-Saxon tribes largely displaced the indigenous British population in southern and eastern Britain (modern-day England with the exception of Cornwall ). This is supported by the writings of Gildas , who gives the only contemporary historical account of
7434-416: The cases of eastern regions such as East Anglia and Lincolnshire, while in parts of Northumbria, much of the native population likely remained in place as the incomers took over as elites. In a study of place names in northeastern England and southern Scotland, Bethany Fox found that the migrants settled in large numbers in river valleys, such as those of the Tyne and the Tweed, with the Britons moving to
7552-408: The collection of racial or ethnic information in 1978, and the National Institute of Statistics and Economic Studies (INSEE), therefore, does not provide census data on White residents or citizens in France. French courts have, however, made cases, and issued rulings, which have identified White people as a demographic group within the country. White people in France are defined, or discussed, as
7670-401: The community retained a thoroughly Dutch character. The Kingdom of Great Britain captured Cape Town in 1795 during the Napoleonic Wars and permanently acquired South Africa from Amsterdam in 1814. The first British immigrants numbered about 4,000 and were introduced in 1820. They represented groups from England , Ireland , Scotland , or Wales and were typically more literate than
7788-472: The complex nature of national identities, with many people considering themselves both English and British. A 2017 survey by YouGov found that 38% of English voters considered themselves both English and British, alongside 19% who felt English but not British. Recent surveys of public opinion on the establishment of an English parliament have given widely varying conclusions. In the first five years of devolution for Scotland and Wales, support in England for
7906-420: The context of Indo-European migrations 5,000 years ago. Recent genetic studies have suggested that Britain's Neolithic population was largely replaced by a population from North Continental Europe characterised by the Bell Beaker culture around 2400 BC, associated with the Yamnaya people from the Pontic-Caspian Steppe . This population lacked genetic affinity to some other Bell Beaker populations, such as
8024-489: The context of racialized slavery and social status in the European colonies. Scholarship on race distinguishes the modern concept from pre-modern descriptions, which focused on physical complexion rather than the idea of race. Prior to the modern era , no European peoples regarded themselves as "White", but rather defined their identity in terms of their religion, ancestry, ethnicity, or nationality . Contemporary anthropologists and other scientists, while recognizing
8142-443: The death of King Stephen in 1154, when the succession passed to Henry II , House of Plantagenet (based in France), and England became part of the Angevin Empire until its collapse in 1214. Anglo-Norman and Latin continued to be the two languages used officially by the Plantagenet kings until Edward I came to the throne, when Middle English became used in official documents, but alongside Anglo-Norman and Latin. Over time
8260-470: The establishment of an English parliament was low at between 16 and 19%, according to successive British Social Attitudes Surveys . A report, also based on the British Social Attitudes Survey, published in December 2010 suggests that only 29% of people in England support the establishment of an English parliament, though this figure had risen from 17% in 2007. One 2007 poll carried out for BBC Newsnight , however, found that 61 per cent would support such
8378-416: The ethnic identities of British people with their perceived national identity . They found that while 58% of white people in England described their nationality as "English", non-white people were more likely to describe themselves as "British". It is unclear how many British people consider themselves English. The words "English" and "British" are often incorrectly used interchangeably, especially outside
8496-449: The general public". Michael Kenny, Richard English and Richard Hayton, meanwhile, argue that the resurgence in English nationalism predates devolution, being observable in the early 1990s, but that this resurgence does not necessarily have negative implications for the perception of the UK as a political union. Others question whether devolution has led to a rise in English national identity at all, arguing that survey data fails to portray
8614-565: The globe such as the African continent ." They have been described as a privileged social class within the country, comparatively sheltered from racism and poverty. Der Spiegel has reported how "most white people in France only know the banlieues as a kind of caricature". Banlieues , outer-city regions across the country that are increasingly identified with minority groups, often have residents who are disproportionately affected by unemployment and poverty. The lack of census data collected by
8732-488: The group, and rhetoric surrounding Whites in France experiencing poverty have been, at times, utilised by various right-wing political elements in the country. University of Lyon 's political scientist Angéline Escafré-Dublet has written that "the equivalent to a White backlash in France can be traced through the debate over the purported neglect of the 'poor Whites' in France". In 2006, French politician Jean-Marie Le Pen suggested there were too many "players of colour" in
8850-515: The index of inconsistency is high, and many, if not most, people from English stock have a tendency (since the introduction of a new 'American' category and ignoring the ancestry question in the 2000 census) to identify as simply Americans or if of mixed European ancestry, identify with a more recent and differentiated ethnic group. Prior to this, in the 2000 census , 24,509,692 Americans described their ancestry as wholly or partly English. In addition, 1,035,133 recorded British ancestry. This
8968-412: The influence of the soil and the temperature, together with the mode of life, have the greatest influence". Blumenbach's conclusion was, however, to proclaim all races' attribution to one single human species. Blumenbach argued that physical characteristics like skin color, cranial profile, etc., depended on environmental factors, such as solarization and diet. Like other monogenists , Blumenbach held to
9086-472: The late 9th century. This was followed by the Norman Conquest and limited settlement of Normans in England in the late 11th century and a sizeable number of French Protestants who emigrated between the 16th and 18th centuries. Some definitions of English people include, while others exclude, people descended from later migration into England. England is the largest and most populous country of
9204-572: The late nineteenth century, the Colonial/State and later federal governments of Australia restricted all permanent immigration to the country by non-Europeans. These policies became known as the " White Australia policy ", which was consolidated and enabled by the Immigration Restriction Act 1901 , but was never universally applied. Immigration inspectors were empowered to ask immigrants to take dictation from any European language as
9322-456: The legal process Presentment of Englishry (a rule by which a hundred had to prove an unidentified murdered body found on their soil to be that of an Englishman, rather than a Norman, if they wanted to avoid a fine). This law was abolished in 1340. Since the 18th century, England has been one part of a wider political entity covering all or part of the British Isles, which today is called
9440-532: The less fertile hill country and becoming acculturated over a longer period. Fox describes the process by which English came to dominate this region as "a synthesis of mass-migration and elite-takeover models." From about 800 AD, waves of Danish Viking assaults on the coastlines of the British Isles were gradually followed by a succession of Danish settlers in England. At first, the Vikings were very much considered
9558-532: The mid-nineteenth and mid-twentieth centuries, race scientists, including most physical anthropologists classified the world's populations into three, four, or five races , which, depending on the authority consulted, were further divided into various sub-races. During this period the Caucasian race , named after people of the Caucasus Mountains but extending to all Europeans, figured as one of these races and
9676-512: The mid-nineteenth century, there were few restrictions on immigration, although members of ethnic minorities tended to be assimilated into the Anglo-Celtic populations. People of many nationalities, including many non-White people, emigrated to Australia during the goldrushes of the 1850s. However, the vast majority was still White and the goldrushes inspired the first racist activism and policy, directed mainly at Chinese immigrants . From
9794-499: The mid-seventeenth century, the novel term español ("Spaniard") was being equated in written documents with blanco , or "White". In Spain's American colonies, African , Native American ( indios ), Jewish , or morisco ancestry formally excluded individuals from the "purity of blood" ( limpieza de sangre ) requirements for holding any public office under the Royal Pragmatic of 1501. Similar restrictions applied in
9912-559: The military, some religious orders, colleges, and universities, leading to a nearly all-White priesthood and professional stratum. Blacks and indios were subject to tribute obligations and forbidden to bear arms, and black and indio women were forbidden to wear jewels, silk, or precious metals in early colonial Mexico and Peru. Those pardos (people with dark skin) and mulattos (people of mixed African and European ancestry) with resources largely sought to evade these restrictions by passing as White. A brief royal offer to buy
10030-553: The new French-speaking Norman elite almost universally replaced the Anglo-Saxon aristocracy and church leaders. After the conquest, "English" normally included all natives of England, whether they were of Anglo-Saxon, Scandinavian or Celtic ancestry, to distinguish them from the Norman invaders, who were regarded as "Norman" even if born in England, for a generation or two after the Conquest. The Norman dynasty ruled England for 87 years until
10148-425: The non-Māori population reached over 250,000. Other smaller groups of settlers came from Germany, Scandinavia, and other parts of Europe as well as from China and India, but British and Irish settlers made up the vast majority and did so for the next 150 years. White people in France are a broad racial-based, or skin color -based, social category in French society. In statistical terms, the French government banned
10266-461: The past; due to the controversial racial order under apartheid , the nation's predominantly Afrikaner government became a target of condemnation by other African states and the site of considerable dissension between 1948 and 1991. There were 4.6 million Whites in South Africa in 2011, down from an all-time high of 5.2 million in 1995 following a wave of emigration commencing in the late twentieth century. However, many returned over time. In
10384-413: The period, and describes the slaughter and starvation of native Britons by invading tribes ( aduentus Saxonum ). Furthermore, the English language contains no more than a handful of words borrowed from Brittonic sources. This view was later re-evaluated by some archaeologists and historians, with a more small-scale migration being posited, possibly based around an elite of male warriors that took over
10502-714: The population of Northern Ireland and 20% of the Welsh population were born in England. Similarly, the census of the Republic of Ireland does not collect information on ethnicity, but it does record that there are over 200,000 people living in Ireland who were born in England and Wales . English ethnic descent and emigrant communities are found primarily in the Western world , and settled in significant numbers in some areas. Substantial populations descended from English colonists and immigrants exist in
10620-668: The population was of European descent. The establishment of British colonies in Australia from 1788 and the boom in whaling and sealing in the Southern Ocean brought many Europeans to the vicinity of New Zealand . Whalers and sealers were often itinerant, and the first real settlers were missionaries and traders in the Bay of Islands area from 1809. Early visitors to New Zealand included whalers, sealers, missionaries, mariners, and merchants, attracted to natural resources in abundance. They came from
10738-476: The position in the political spectrum of the person – where European ethnic groups and nations labeled or treated other Europeans as members of another, somehow "inferior race". Between the Enlightenment era and interwar period, the racist worldviews fit well into the liberal worldview, and they were almost general among the liberal thinkers and politicians. Definitions of White have changed over
10856-627: The privileges of Whiteness for a substantial sum of money attracted fifteen applicants before pressure from White elites ended the practice. In the British colonies in North America and the Caribbean, the designation English or Christian was initially used in contrast to Native Americans or Africans. Early appearances of White race or White people in the Oxford English Dictionary begin in
10974-459: The proportion of people who consider being white to be a necessary component of Englishness has declined over time. The 1990s witnessed a resurgence of English national identity. Survey data shows a rise in the number of people in England describing their national identity as English and a fall in the number describing themselves as British. Today, black and minority ethnic people of England still generally identify as British rather than English to
11092-409: The reality of biological variation between different human populations, regard the concept of a unified, distinguishable "White race" as a social construct with no scientific basis. According to anthropologist Nina Jablonski : In ancient Egypt as a whole, people were not designated by color terms ... Egyptian inscriptions and literature only rarely, for instance, mention the dark skin color of
11210-653: The recent 2021 census of Hong Kong, 61,582 people identified as white representing 0.8% of the total population. In the Far East at Southeast Asia , in the Philippines , a genetic study by the National Geographic , shows that 5% of the population are Southern Europeans that had arrived due to the Spanish colonization of the archipelago, most of which are Spanish Filipinos The recent 2021 Australian census does not use
11328-579: The relatively under-developed economic status of Eastern European countries such as Poland and the USSR was attributed to the racial inferiority of their inhabitants. Fascist Italy took the same view, and both of these nations justified their colonial ambitions in Eastern Europe on racist, anti-Slavic grounds. These nations were not alone in their view; during the long nineteenth century and interwar period , there were numerous cases – regardless of
11446-601: The river Obi, the Caspian Sea and the Ganges; and lastly, those of Northern Africa." Blumenbach quotes various other systems by his contemporaries, ranging from two to seven races, authored by the authorities of that time, including, besides Linnæus, Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon , Christoph Meiners and Immanuel Kant . In the question of color, he conducts a rather thorough inquiry, considering also factors of diet and health , but ultimately believes that "climate, and
11564-500: The rule of the country and gradually acculturated the people living there. Within this theory, two processes leading to Anglo-Saxonisation have been proposed. One is similar to culture changes observed in Russia, North Africa and parts of the Islamic world, where a politically and socially powerful minority culture becomes, over a rather short period, adopted by a settled majority. This process
11682-462: The same country. Some countries do not ask questions about race or colour at all in their census. The social definition has also been added where possible. White Dutch people first arrived in South Africa around 1652. By the beginning of the eighteenth century, some 2,000 Europeans and their descendants were established in the region. Although these early Afrikaners represented various nationalities, including German peasants and French Huguenots ,
11800-485: The same time, after the Union of 1707, the English, along with the other peoples of the British Isles, have been encouraged to think of themselves as British rather than to identify themselves with the constituent nations. England has been the destination of varied numbers of migrants at different periods from the 17th century onwards. While some members of these groups seek to practise a form of pluralism, attempting to maintain
11918-466: The seventeenth century. Historian Winthrop Jordan reports that, "throughout the [thirteen] colonies the terms Christian , free , English , and white were ... employed indiscriminately" in the seventeenth century as proxies for one another. In 1680, Morgan Godwyn "found it necessary to explain" to English readers that "in Barbados , 'white' was 'the general name for Europeans.'" Several historians report
12036-567: The study. A third study combined the ancient data from both of the preceding studies and compared it to a large number of modern samples from across Britain and Ireland. This study found that modern southern, central and eastern English populations were of "a predominantly Anglo-Saxon-like ancestry" while those from northern and southwestern England had a greater degree of indigenous origin. A major 2020 study, which used DNA from Viking-era burials in various regions across Europe, found that modern English samples showed nearly equal contributions from
12154-598: The surviving Britons in areas of predominantly Anglo-Saxon settlement, either archaeologically or linguistically, is still one of the deepest problems of early English history." An emerging view is that the degree of population replacement by the Anglo-Saxons, and thus the degree of survival of the Romano-Britons, varied across England, and that as such the overall settlement of Britain by the Anglo-Saxons cannot be described by any one process in particular. Large-scale migration and population shift seems to be most applicable in
12272-437: The term “white” on their census form, therefore results showed 54.7% of the population identifying with a European ancestry. From 1788, when the first British colony in Australia was founded, until the early nineteenth century, most immigrants to Australia were English, Scottish, Welsh and Irish convicts . These were augmented by small numbers of free settlers from the British Isles and other European countries. However, until
12390-662: The two." Similarly, Xenophon of Athens describes Persian prisoners of war as "white-skinned because they were never without their clothing, and soft and unused to toil because they always rode in carriages" and states that Greek soldiers as a result believed "that the war would be in no way different from having to fight with women." Classicist James H. Dee states "the Greeks do not describe themselves as 'White people' – or as anything else because they had no regular word in their color vocabulary for themselves." People's skin color did not carry useful meaning; what mattered
12508-433: The whole satisfied with current constitutional arrangements". From the earliest times, English people have left England to settle in other parts of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. It is impossible to identify their numbers, as British censuses have historically not invited respondents to identify themselves as English. However, the census does record place of birth, revealing that 8.1% of Scotland's population, 3.7% of
12626-426: The work of Ruth Frankenberg , states, "the history of modern racist domination has been bound up with the history of how European peoples defined themselves (and sometimes some other peoples) as members of a superior 'white race'." Alastair Bonnett argues that "white identity", as it is presently conceived, is an American project, reflecting American interpretations of race and history. According to Gregory Jay,
12744-408: The world by proclaiming that they do not have institutional racism in their nation." Sociologist Crystal Marie Fleming has written; "While many whites in France refuse to acknowledge institutionalized racism and white supremacy , there is widespread belief in the specter of 'anti-white racism'". Accusations of anti-White racism, suggestions of the displacement of, or lack of representation for,
12862-484: The years, including the official definitions used in many countries, such as the United States and Brazil . Through the mid to late twentieth century, numerous countries had formal legal standards or procedures defining racial categories (see cleanliness of blood , casta , apartheid in South Africa , hypodescent ). Below are some census definitions of White, which may differ from the social definition of White within
12980-414: Was a decline from 92.4% in 2016 and 94.24% in 2011 . People who identified as “White Irish” in 2022 were 3,893,056 or 76.5% of the total population, a decline from 87.4% in 2006. As of the 2021 census, 89.1% self-identified as Caucasian racial origin. Maltese -born natives make up the majority of the island with 386,280 people out of a total population of 519,562. However, there are minorities,
13098-478: Was a numerical decrease from the census in 1990 where 32,651,788 people or 13.1% of the population self-identified with English ancestry. White people White is a racial classification of people generally used for those of mostly European ancestry . It is also a skin color specifier, although the definition can vary depending on context, nationality, ethnicity and point of view. Description of populations as "White" in reference to their skin color
13216-590: Was for the most part a politically unified entity, and remained permanently so after 954. The nation of England was formed in 12 July 927 by Æthelstan of Wessex after the Treaty of Eamont Bridge , as Wessex grew from a relatively small kingdom in the South West to become the founder of the Kingdom of the English, incorporating all Anglo-Saxon kingdoms and the Danelaw. The Norman conquest of England during 1066 brought Anglo-Saxon and Danish rule of England to an end, as
13334-493: Was incorporated as a formal category of both pseudoscientific research and, in countries including the United States, social classification. There was never any scholarly consensus on the delineation between the Caucasian race, including the populations of Europe, and the Mongoloid one, including the populations of East Asia. Thus, Carleton S. Coon (1939) included the populations native to all of Central and Northern Asia under
13452-483: Was interpreted as reflecting the legacy of French migration under the Normans. A landmark 2022 study titled "The Anglo-Saxon migration and the formation of the early English gene pool", found the English to be of plurality Anglo-Saxon-like ancestry, with heavy native Celtic Briton , and newly confirmed medieval French admixture. Significant regional variation was also observed. The first people to be called "English" were
13570-738: Was introduced during the 1st millennium. The influence of later invasions and migrations on the English population has been debated, as studies that sampled only modern DNA have produced uncertain results and have thus been subject to a large variety of interpretations. More recently, however, ancient DNA has been used to provide a clearer picture of the genetic effects of these movements of people. One 2016 study, using Iron Age and Anglo-Saxon era DNA found at grave sites in Cambridgeshire, calculated that ten modern day eastern English samples had 38% Anglo-Saxon ancestry on average, while ten Welsh and Scottish samples each had 30% Anglo-Saxon ancestry, with
13688-405: Was not politically unified until the 10th century. Before then, there were a number of petty kingdoms which gradually coalesced into a heptarchy of seven states, the most powerful of which were Mercia and Wessex . The English nation state began to form when the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms united against Danish Viking invasions, which began around 800 AD. Over the following century and a half England
13806-727: Was relaxed in stages: non-European nationals who could demonstrate European descent were admitted (e.g., descendants of European colonizers and settlers from Latin America or Africa ), as were autochthonous inhabitants (such as Maronites , Assyrians and Mandeans ) of various nations from the Middle East, most significantly from Lebanon and to a lesser degree Iraq , Syria and Iran . In 1973, all immigration restrictions based on race and geographic origin were officially terminated. Australia enumerated its population by race between 1911 and 1966, by racial origin in 1971 and 1976, and by self-declared ancestry alone since 1981, meaning no attempt
13924-464: Was still an all-embracing word. It meant indiscriminately England and Wales; Great Britain; the United Kingdom; and even the British Empire. Foreigners used it as the name of a Great Power and indeed continue to do so. Bonar Law , by origin a Scotch Canadian , was not ashamed to describe himself as "Prime Minister of England" [...] Now terms have become more rigorous. The use of "England" except for
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