Posted: Fri 16 Jun 2006 03:20 Post subject: Re: the "Partus" rule
Phil345 wrote:
Frank was the partus rule universal in the south? I ask because Maryland seemed to have had various laws binding the mixed children of white women to slavery.
When Virginia passed the partus sequitur ventrem law in 1661, Maryland went the other way, decreeing thatslavery was inherited only from the father. This was in line with ancient British traditions of patrilineal social status. To quote from a recent post at http://backintyme.com/ODR/viewtopic.php?p=8871#8871:
Quote:
[After Virginia decreen matrilineal slavery in 1661...] Oddly enough, the Maryland colony had the same debate and went with [patrilineal slavery]. Interracial families headed by Black males promptly fled to Virginia and those headed by White males fled to Maryland. Although Maryland switched to match Virginia 20 years later, the temporary legal discrepancy spawned a series of lawsuits lasting for well over a century as to which offspring were legally slaves.
For details, including how and why servant Irish Nell helped Lord Baltimore to reverse the incompatible Maryland law in 1681, read the section titled "The Transition Period" in The Invention of the Color Line: 1691.
The act of repeal of 1681, therefore, is self explanatory. The preamble reads: “Forasmuch as, divers free-born English, or white women, sometimes by the instigation, procurement or connivance of their masters, mistresses, or dames, and always to the satisfaction of their lascivious and lustful desires, and to the disgrace not only of the English, but also of many other Christian nations, do intermarry with Negroes and slaves, by which means, divers inconveniences, controversies, and suits may arise, touching the issue or children of such free-born women aforesaid; for the prevention whereof for the future, Be it enacted: That if the marriage of any woman-servant with any slave shall take place by the procurement of permission of the master, such woman and her issue shall be free.” It enacted a penalty by fine on the master or mistress and on the person joining the parties in marriage."14
Is the Maryland repeal specific to servant women who were married to slaves?? The wording makes it seem that way(or maybe this is not the full text of the act?).
Is the Maryland repeal specific to servant women who were married to slaves?
That is my understanding. In other words, the 1664 law read, "For deterring such free borne women from such shamefull Matches... whatsoever free borne woman shall inter marry with any slave... shall Serve the master of such slave dureing the life of her husband And that all the issue of such freeborne woemen soe marryed shall be Slaves as their fathers were." The repeal of 1681 used the same wording, so as to reverse the effects of the 1664 law. (They then adopted the Virginia partus sequitur ventrem law.)
I am not sure why you asked, but one thing I found interesting was that interracial marriages where both parties were free or where both parties were slaves were not outlawed until a decade later. The 1664 law and its 1681 repeal were specifically about slave/free marriages, not about Black/White marriages.
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