Abstract: We associate the European Enlightenment with individual liberty. We should also keep in mind, however, that the freedom enjoyed by property-owning Europeans in the age of Enlightenment went hand in hand with the unfreedom of millions of enslaved humans. Kant, as a prominent Enlightenment thinker, never unequivocally condemned colonial slavery as an institution or supported the abolitionist movement that began to gain momentum in the late 1780s. He understood the political economy of colonial slavery and was aware of the brutality of its practice, especially in the highly profitable sugar colonies in the Caribbeans. In particular, he recognized that the number of Negersklaven (Negro slaves) in those colonies was "the true measure of wealth," that the cultivation of sugarcane completely depended on their labor, that the raw sugar they produced was the source of the powdered sugar, for instance, enjoyed by Europeans like him, and that labor was extracted from Negro slaves with extreme cruelty. At the same time, Kant propagated an image of Negroes as physically strong, lazy, stupid, and fearful-a combination of characteristics that made them not only uniquely suited for slavery but also unable to make good of freedom. In this talk, I will consider how an understanding of the economic complexity of colonial slavery coupled with racist assumptions about (enslaved) Negroes limited Kant's and his contemporaries' imagination about their political fate.