Legal History of the Color Line: The Rise and Triumph of the One-Drop RuleBackintyme, 2005 - 540 pages One-Third of White Americans Have Recent Black Admixture Every Year, 35,000 Black-Born Youngsters Redefine Themselves as White Genealogists were the first to learn that America's color line leaks. Black researchers often find White ancestry. White genealogists routinely uncover Black ancestry. Molecular anthropologists now confirm Afro-European mixing in our DNA. The plain fact is that few Americans can truly say that they are genetically unmixed. Yet liberals and conservatives alike agree that so-called Whites and Blacks are distinct political races. When did ideology triumph over reality? How did America paint itself into such a strange corner? Americans changed their concept of race many times. Eston Hemings, Jefferson's son, was socially accepted as a White Virginian because he looked European. Biracial planters in antebellum South Carolina assimilated into White society because they were rich. Intermarried couples were acquitted despite the laws because some courts ruled that anyone one with less than one-fourth African ancestry was White, while others ruled that Italians were Colored. Dozens of nineteenth-century American families struggled to come to grips with notions of racial identity as the color line shifted and hardened into its present form. This 542-page book tells their stories in the light of genetic admixture studies and in the records of every appealed court case since 1780 that decided which side of the color line someone was on. Its index lists dozens of 19th-century surnames. It shows that: The color line was invented in 1691 to prevent servile insurrection. The one-drop rule was invented in the North during the Nat Turner panic. It was resisted by LouisianaCreoles, Florida Hispanics, and the maroon (triracial) communities of the Southeast. It triumphed during Jim Crow as a means of keeping Whites in line by banishing to Blackness any White family who dared to establish friendly relations with a Black family. Frank W. Sweet was accepted to Ph.D. candidacy in history at the University of Florida in 2003 and has completed all but his dissertation defense. He earned an M.A. in History from American Military University in 2001. He is the author of eleven historical booklets and numerous published historical essays. He was a member of the editorial board of the magazine Interracial Voice, is a regular lecturer and panelist at historical and genealogical conferences, and moderates an online discussion group on the history of U.S. racialism. Legal History of the Color Line, ISBN 0-939479-23-0, is available for $36.95 from Ingram, Baker & Taylor, www.amazon.com, www.barnesandnoble.com, and can be ordered at any bookstore. |
From inside the book
Results 1-5 of 54
Page 8
... Mulatto elite " and about one Louisiana slave in twenty - five was owned by a member of the biracial " Creole elite . " Few historians tell 12 of these slaveowners.13 The ability to switch sides is precisely. 11 J.W. Warren and F.W. ...
... Mulatto elite " and about one Louisiana slave in twenty - five was owned by a member of the biracial " Creole elite . " Few historians tell 12 of these slaveowners.13 The ability to switch sides is precisely. 11 J.W. Warren and F.W. ...
Page 48
... Mulattoes in the United States ( New York , 1980 ) , 118-21 . 24 E. Rebate and others , " Sibling Correlations of Skin Pigmentation During Growth , " Human Biology , 71 ( no . 2 , 1999 ) , 277-93 . 25 J.H. Relethford , F.C. Lees , and ...
... Mulattoes in the United States ( New York , 1980 ) , 118-21 . 24 E. Rebate and others , " Sibling Correlations of Skin Pigmentation During Growth , " Human Biology , 71 ( no . 2 , 1999 ) , 277-93 . 25 J.H. Relethford , F.C. Lees , and ...
Page 75
... x .001382 = 49,784. 10 Joel Williamson, New People: Miscegenation and Mulattoes in the United States (New York, 1980) 100-6, 119-20. cans today merely be an echo of the intermarrying 17th Rate of Black-to-White —Passing“ 75 Years.
... x .001382 = 49,784. 10 Joel Williamson, New People: Miscegenation and Mulattoes in the United States (New York, 1980) 100-6, 119-20. cans today merely be an echo of the intermarrying 17th Rate of Black-to-White —Passing“ 75 Years.
Page 78
... Mulatto Nation Times , July 2004 . 13 Antebellum American society attempted meticulously to keep track of who was slave and who was free , but this is quite something else again . 16 For Channing , see her autobiography Carol Charming ...
... Mulatto Nation Times , July 2004 . 13 Antebellum American society attempted meticulously to keep track of who was slave and who was free , but this is quite something else again . 16 For Channing , see her autobiography Carol Charming ...
Page 82
... mulattos " ) . In the 1960 census , after the legislative fiats , Robeson county's 30,000 " mulattos " vanished and 30,000 " Lumbee Indians " suddenly appeared . The mulatto " Croatans " had become the " Lumbee Indians . " The Lumbees ...
... mulattos " ) . In the 1960 census , after the legislative fiats , Robeson county's 30,000 " mulattos " vanished and 30,000 " Lumbee Indians " suddenly appeared . The mulatto " Croatans " had become the " Lumbee Indians . " The Lumbees ...
Contents
1 | |
13 | |
37 | |
55 | |
71 | |
89 | |
1691 | 117 |
WHY DID VIRGINIAS RULERS INVENT A COLOR | 133 |
THE ONEDROP RULE | 263 |
THE INVENTION OF THE ONEDROP RULE IN | 299 |
WHY DID NORTHERNERS INVENT A ONEDROP | 325 |
THE ANTEBELLUM SOUTH REJECTS THE ONE | 347 |
THE ONEDROP RULE IN THE POSTBELLUM | 363 |
THE ONEDROP RULE ARRIVES IN | 377 |
JIM CROW TRIUMPH OF THE ONEDROP RULE403 | 403 |
WHY DID ONEDROP BECOME NATIONWIDE | 439 |
HOW THE LAW DECIDED IF YOU WERE BLACK | 153 |
A CLASS | 181 |
NO ENDOGAMOUS COLOR | 215 |
THE COLOR LINE CREATED AFRICAN | 235 |
APPENDICES | 467 |
WORKS CITED | 495 |
INDEX | 529 |
Common terms and phrases
accepted African admixture African ancestry African genetic admixture African-American African-American ethnicity Afro-European Afro-European Genetic Admixture Alabama alleles antebellum became biracial Black ancestry Black endogamous group Black side Black Yankee Black-to-White blood fraction blood-fraction Catterall census century Chapter Civil colonial Colored Creoles County culture decades descendants despite dogamous drop rule endogamous color line endogamous group membership enforced European European-looking exogamy Foner free Blacks genes Hispanic History Human Genetics hypodescent Ibid Identity intermarriage interracial invented invisible Blackness James Jim Crow Journal Justice laborers look Louisiana lower South Lumbee markers marriage married Melungeons Miscegenation mous group Mulatto Nat Turner negro blood North one-drop rule parents passing percent African person physical appearance population Race racial record rule of invisible shows skin tone slave Slavery social society South Carolina Spanish Florida status tion topic traits U.S. Black United University upper South Virginia White Americans White endogamous group York
Popular passages
Page 107 - Why should Pennsylvania, founded by the English, become a Colony of Aliens, who will shortly be so numerous as to Germanize us instead of our Anglifying them, and will never adopt our Language or Customs, any more than they can acquire our Complexion.
Page 241 - David R. Roediger, The Wages of Whiteness: Race and the Making of the American Working Class (London: Verso, 1991); Noel Ignatiev, How the Irish Became White...
Page 131 - Slaves cannot breathe in England ; if their lungs Receive our air, that moment they are free; They touch our country, and their shackles fall.
Page 229 - The inhabitants of the territories which His Catholic Majesty cedes to the United States, by this treaty, shall be incorporated in the Union of the United States, as soon as may be consistent with the principles of the Federal Constitution, and admitted to the enjoyment of all the privileges, rights, and immunities of the citizens of the United States.
Page 253 - A separation of the races is the only perfect preventive of amalgamation; but as an immediate separation is impossible, the next best thing is to keep them apart where they are not already together.
Page 202 - No free negro, free mulatto, or free person of mixed blood, descended from negro ancestors, to the fourth generation inclusive, (though one ancestor of each generation may have been a white person.) shall vote for members of the senate or house of commons.
Page 252 - On the contrary, the prejudice of race appears to be stronger in the states that have abolished slavery than in those where it still exists; and nowhere is it so intolerant as in those states where servitude has never been known.
Page 279 - Hispanic. A person of Mexican, Puerto Rican. Cuban, Central or South American or other Spanish culture or origin, regardless of race. (e) White. A person having origins in any of the original peoples of Europe, North Africa, or the Middle East.
Page 236 - Young, ardent, and hopeful, I entered upon this new life in the full gush of unsuspecting enthusiasm. The cause was good; the men engaged in it were good; the means to attain its triumph, good; Heaven's blessing must attend all, and freedom must soon be given to the pining millions under a ruthless bondage.
Page 393 - Missouri, as alleged in his declaration, being a negro of African descent, whose ancestors were of pure African blood, and who were brought into this country and sold as slaves.