History books are biased towards the opinion of scholars and governments, and seldom explore what most people think. I like to treat people of the past like human beings that were able to think for them selves, and I don’t think they were much different from your average person today.

During the horrors of European colonization, governments had vested interest in treating indigenous peoples in their colonies as sub-human, and they sponsored whichever scholar to portray them as such. So I think it is very natural that we today view Europeans of the past as extremely racist bunch (their governments certainly were). But do wonder how many regular people were influenced by the racist frenzy of their governments. My guess is probably about as many as in Europe today.