The remnants of the racial divide became stronger post-slavery as the concept of whiteness developed. There was a widely held belief that uncontrollable lust threatens the purity of the nation. This increased white anxiety about interracial sex, and has been described through Montesquieu's climatic theory in his book The Spirit of the Laws, which explains how people from different climates have different temperaments, 'The inhabitants of warm countries are, like old men, timorous the people in cold countries are, like young men, brave.' At the time, black women held the ' Jezebel' stereotype, which claimed black women often initiated sex outside of marriage and were generally sexually promiscuous. This idea stemmed from the first encounters between European men and African women. As the men were not used to the extremely hot climate, they misinterpreted the women's lack of clothing for vulgarity. Similarly, black men were stereotyped for having a specific lust for white women. This created tension, implying that white men were having sex with black women because they were more lustful, and in turn black men would lust after white women in the same way.
