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How did racism help European colonizers justify minority rule?

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Map of North America in 1763 using color coding to show colonial territories: the 13 American colonies in red along the Atlantic coast, other British territory in orange across much of present-day Canada, Spanish territory in purple covering most of the southern and western regions, Russian territory in green in the northwest, and large areas of unclaimed land in white. Major bodies of water such as the Atlantic Ocean, Pacific Ocean, Gulf of Mexico, and Hudson Bay are labeled. — Western colonialism North America during the colonial period.

European colonizers utilized racist ideologies to justify minority rule by constructing hierarchical frameworks that positioned individuals of European descent as inherently superior. This racial worldview was reinforced by the following mechanisms:12

Scientific Racism: Colonizers employed falsified scientific or pseudoscientific hypotheses to categorize human populations into immutable, biologically distinct "races." By organizing these groups hierarchically, they claimed that European dominance was a natural and objective outcome of biological superiority.2
Social Darwinism: This theory applied the concept of "survival of the fittest" to human societies, arguing that stronger groups were destined to dominate or replace "weaker" ones. It provided a philosophical rationalization for imperialist and colonial policies, suggesting that the subjugation of non-European peoples was an inevitable part of natural selection.34
Institutionalization: These ideologies were integrated into colonial governance through ethnographic research, census taking, and mapping, which were used to define and control colonial subjects. By labeling indigenous populations as "primitive" or "barbarian," colonizers legitimized their authority and the exclusion of local populations from political power.51

These practices were fundamentally unethical, as they relied on dehumanizing myths to exploit and oppress marginalized groups for the benefit of colonial powers.13