//It's not exactly ambiguous that, by modern standards, he was a racist. To be sure, so was society as a whole at the time.//
Possibly there were plausible reasons for these biases. (I don't say logical or necessary.) The scientific disparity between post-Enlightenment Europe and the New World is an obvious "evidence" in favour. (Remember Darwin and the guy he met on Tierra del Fuego?).
We have largely acknowledged and corrected these biases, Jim. I'm unconvinced that other cultures have acknowledged and corrected theirs. But that's a different thread.
The point to me is not that we forgive our forefathers their sins, but that we allow for them - there but for the grace of God etcwe understand the circumst