The Journal of Negro History Volume III Part 37

Persons who professed seriously to consider the future of slavery, therefore, saw that miscegenation and especially the general connection of white men with their female slaves introduced a mulatto race whose numbers would become dangerous, if the affections of their white parents were permitted to render them free.[480] The Americans of the future would thereby become a race of mixed breeds rather than a white and a black population. As the l.u.s.t of white persons for those of color was too strong to prevent this miscegenation, the liberty of emanc.i.p.ating their mulatto offspring was restricted in the slave States but that of selling them remained.[481]

These laws eventually, therefore, had their desired effect. They were never intended to prevent the miscegenation of the races but to debase to a still lower status the offspring of the blacks who in spite of public opinion might intermarry with the poor white women and to leave women of color without protection against white men, who might use them for convenience, whereas white women and black men would gradually grow separate and distinct in their social relations.

Although thereafter the offspring of blacks and whites did not diminish, instead of being gradually a.s.similated to the type of the Caucasian they tended to const.i.tute a peculiar cla.s.s commonly called people of color having a higher social status than that of the blacks but finally cla.s.sified with all other persons of African blood as Negroes.

While it later became a capital offence in some of the slave States for a Negro man to cohabit with a white woman, Abdy who toured this country from 1833 to 1834 doubted that such laws were enforced. "A man," said he, "was hanged not long ago for this crime at New Orleans.

The partner of his guilt--his master's daughter--endeavored to save his life, by avowing that she alone was to blame. She died shortly after his execution."[482] With the white man and the Negro woman the situation was different. A sister of President Madison once said to the Reverend George Bourne, then a Presbyterian minister in Virginia: "We Southern ladies are complimented with the name of wives; but we are only the mistresses of seraglios." The masters of the female slaves, however, were not always the only persons of loose morals.

Many women of color were also prost.i.tuted to the purposes of young white men[483] and overseers.[484] Goodell reports a well-authenticated account of a respectable Christian lady at the South who kept a handsome mulatto female for the use of her genteel son, as a method of deterring him, as she said, "from indiscriminate and vulgar indulgences."[485] Harriet Martineau discovered a young white man who on visiting a southern lady became insanely enamored of her intelligent quadroon maid. He sought to purchase her but the owner refused to sell the slave because of her unusual worth. The young white man persisted in trying to effect this purchase and finally informed her owner that he could not live without this attractive slave. Thereupon the white lady sold the woman of color to satisfy the l.u.s.t of her friend.[486]

The accomplishment of this task of reducing the free people of color to the status of the blacks, however, was not easy. In the first place, so many persons of color had risen to positions of usefulness among progressive people and had formed connections with them that an abrupt separation was both inexpedient and undesirable. Exceptions to the hard and fast rules of caste were often made to relieve the people of color. Moreover, the miscegenation of the races in the South and especially in large cities like Charleston and New Orleans had gone to the extent that from these centers eventually went, as they do now, a large number of quadroons and octoroons,[487] who elsewhere crossed over to the other race.

White men ashamed of the planters who abused helpless black women are now trying to minimize the prevalence of this custom. Such an effort, however, means little in the face of the facts that one seventh of the Negroes in the United States had in their veins any amount of Caucasian blood in 1860 and according to the last census more than one fifth of them have this infusion. Furthermore the testimony of travelers in this country during the slavery period support the contention that race admixture was common.[488]

So extensive did it become that the most prominent white men in the country did not escape. Benjamin Franklin seems to have made no secret of his a.s.sociations with Negro women.[490] Russell connects many of these cases with the master cla.s.s in Virginia.[491] There are now in Was.h.i.+ngton Negroes who call themselves the descendants of two Virginians who attained the presidency of the United States.

The abolitionists made positive statements about the mulatto offspring of Thomas Jefferson. Goodell lamented the fact that Jefferson in his will had to entreat the legislature of Virginia to confirm his bequest of freedom to his own reputed enslaved offspring that they might remain in the State of their nativity, where their families and connections were.[492] Writing in 1845, the editor of the _Cleveland American_ expressed regret that notwithstanding all the services and sacrifices of Jefferson in the establishment of the freedom of this country, his own son then living in Ohio was not allowed to vote or bear witness in a court of justice. The editor of the _Ohio Star_ said: "We are not sure whether this is intended as a statement of actual fact, or of what might possibly and naturally enough be true."

_The Cincinnati Herald_ inquired: "Is this a fact? If so, it ought to be known. Perhaps 'the Democracy' might be induced to pa.s.s a special act in his favor." _The Cleveland American_, therefore, added: "We are credibly informed that a natural son of Jefferson by the celebrated 'Black Sal,' a person of no little renown in the politics of 1800 and thereafter, is now living in a central county of Ohio. We shall endeavor to get at the truth of the matter and make public the result of our inquiries."[493]

A later report of miscegenation of this kind was recorded by Jane Grey Swisshelm in her _Half a Century_, where she states that a daughter of President John Tyler "ran away with the man she loved in order that she might be married, but for this they must reach foreign soil. A young lady of the White House could not marry the man of her choice in the United States. The lovers were captured and she was brought to His Excellency, her father, who sold her to a slave-trader. From that Was.h.i.+ngton slave-pen she was taken to New Orleans by a man who expected to get twenty-five hundred dollars for her on account of her great beauty.[494]

CARTER G. WOODSON

FOOTNOTES:

[442] MacDonald, _Trade, Politics and Christianity in Africa and the East_, Chapter on inter-racial marriage, p. 239; and THE JOURNAL OF NEGRO HISTORY, pp. 329, 334-344.

[443] _Report of First Race Congress_, 1911, p. 330; MacDonald, _Trade, Politics, and Christianity_, p. 235; and _Contemporary Review_, August, 1911.

[444] _Report of First Races Congress_, 1911, p. 330.

[445] Johnston, _The Negro in the New World_, p. 98.

[446] _Ibid._, p. 78.

[447] _Ibid._, pp. 98-99.

[448] Authorities consider the Amerindians the most fecund stock in the country, especially when mixed with an effusion of white or black blood. Aga.s.siz, _A Journey in Brazil in 1868_.

[449] Johnston, _The Negro in the New World_, p. 135.

[450] _Code Noir._

[451] Brackett, _The Negro in Maryland_, pp. 32-33.

[452] Benjamin Banneker's mother was a white woman who married one of her own slaves. See Tyson, _Benjamin Banneker_, p. 3.

[453] _Archives of Maryland, Proceedings of the General a.s.sembly_, 1637-1664, pp. 533-534.

[454] Calhoun, _A Social History of the American Family_, p. 94.

[455] Harris and McHenry Reports, I, pp. 374, 376; II, pp. 26, 38, 214, 233.

[456] Hurd, _Law of Freedom and Bondage_, VI, pp. 249-250.

[457] McCormac, _White Servitude in Maryland_, p. 70.

[458] Act of a.s.sembly, Oct., 1727.

[459] Dorsey, _The General Public Statutory Law and Public Local Law of State of Maryland_, from 1692-1839, p. 79.

[460] Bullagh, _White Servitude in the Colony of Virginia_, pp. 72, 73.

[461] Hening, _The Statutes at Large_, I, pp. 146, 532. II, 170; III, pp. 86-88, 252.

[462] Hening, _Statutes at Large_, VI, pp. 360-362.

[463] Meade, _Old Churches and Families of Virginia_, I, p. 366.

[464] Russell, _Free Negro in Virginia_, pp. 138-139.

[465] Ba.s.sett, _Slavery and Servitude in North Carolina_, p. 83.

[466] _Ibid._, pp. 58-59. See also _Natural History of North Carolina_, p. 48; and Hawk's _History of North Carolina_, II, pp.

126-127.

[467] Potter, _Revised Laws of North Carolina_, I, p. 130.

[468] _Ibid._, I, p. 157.

[469] _Ma.s.sachusetts Charters, etc._, p. 747; Hurd, _Law of Freedom and Bondage_, VI, p. 262.

[470] Turner, _The Negro in Pennsylvania_, pp. 29-30.

[471] _Ibid._, p. 30.

[472] _The American Weekly Mercury_ (Philadelphia), August 20, 1720.

[473] _The Pennsylvania Gazette_, June 1, 1749.

[474] _Statutes at Large_, IV, p. 62.

[475] Turner, _The Negro in Pennsylvania_, p. 31.

[476] Branagan, _Serious Remonstrances_, pp. 68, 69, 70, 71, 73, 74, 75, 102; _Somerset Whig_, March 12, 1818, and _Union Times_, August 15, 1834.

[477] _Journal of Senate_, 1820-1821, p. 213; and _American Daily Advertiser_, January 23, 1821.

[478] _Proceedings and Debates of the Convention of 1838_, X, p. 230.