Posted: Sun 02 Oct 2005 19:54 Post subject: FW from IV: Mixed ancestry prior to Civil War
Quote:
From: Daryl darylyh@houston.rr.com
Sent: Sunday, October 2, 2005 4:35 AM
Subject: Email IV
Over the years, I've stumbled across many articles and research papers about the estimated percent of families/persons in the US who are of mixed ancestry. In particular, I've read statistics specific to families who were "established" in this country prior to the Civil War.
Now that I'm finally writing (you folks have linked my mixed ancestry site for many years), rather than leaving the discussion static, I'd like to circle back to the subject of mixed ancestry in "white" or "black" families. But - I can't find any of the sources. I don't know whether it's my failure with the search terms, or I've simply mis-remembered.
I'm hoping you can point me to some sources that discuss the percentage of mixed ancestry in families who were established in the US prior to the Civil War (whether the family today regards itself as white or black).
its my understanding that mixed race people (black/white), were always classified as "mulatto" prior to 1930, and those persons made up about 10% of the colored population.....corect me if i'm wrong.
its my understanding that mixed race people (black/white), were always classified as "mulatto" prior to 1930, and those persons made up about 10% of the colored population.....correct me if i'm wrong.
First, the use of passive voice (“were always classified”) conceals just who is supposedly doing the classifying. Who is the poster referring to, in any given historical period? The social elite? The government? Upper-class society? The king? The Church? The Pharaoh? The Blues and Greens of 6th-century Byzantium? Clearly it is senseless to suggest that all every institution for the 160 millennia of our species’ history before 1930 classified people in the same way.
Second, even if we assume that he refers to the history of Anglophone North America, different institutions classified people differently. The Quakers took a different approach from the Baptists, folks in Massachusetts classified people differently than folks in Alabama.
Third, even if we further limit his statement to just governmental institutions after the Revolutionary War, every state and county set up its own rules. Indeed, since the mid-1800s, every government agency has made up its own rules. Even today, for example, the federal Small Business Administration, the EEOC, and the Census Bureau have dramatically different, even flatly contradictory, classification schemes.
Fourth, if we limit his statement to just the federal decennial census, the federal censuses before 1850 (1790, 1800, 1810, 1820, 1830, 1840) recorded only the color of each family and did not “racially” classify individuals at all. Some state and county censuses classified individuals, but only starting in 1850 was each household member recorded individually at the federal level.
Fifth, the term “race” first appears in the federal census of 1900. Before then, there was no census “race,” just “color.” Furthermore, the rules that census-takers were supposed to follow in evaluating “color” changed from census to census. Specifically:
Quote:
1850 — Under heading 6, entitled "Color," in all cases where the person is white, leave the space blank; in all cases where the person is black, insert the letter B; if mulatto, insert M. It is very desirable that these particulars be carefully regarded.
1860 -- Color. — Under heading 6, entitled "Color," in all cases where the person is white leave the space blank; in all cases where the person is black without admixture insert the letter "B;"if a mulatto, or of mixed blood, write "M;"if an Indian, write "Ind." It is very desirable to have these directions carefully observed.
1870 -- Color. — It must not be assumed that, where nothing is written in this column, "White" is to be understood. The column is always to be filled. Be particularly careful in reporting the class Mulatto. The word is here generic, and includes quadroons, octoroons, and all persons having any perceptible trace of African blood. Important scientific results depend upon the correct determination of this class in schedules 1 and 2.
1880 -- Color. — It must not be assumed that, where nothing is written in this column, "white" is to be understood. The column is always to be filled. Be particularly careful in reporting the class mulatto. The word is here generic, and includes quadroons, octoroons, and all persons having any perceptible trace of African blood. Important scientific results depend upon the correct determination of this class in schedules 1 and 5.
1890 -- Whether white, black, mulatto. quadroon, octoroon, Chinese, Japanese, or Indian. — Write white, black, mulatto, quadroon, octoroon, Chinese, Japanese, or Indian, according to the color or race of the person enumerated. Be particularly careful to distinguish between blacks, mulattos, quadroons, and octoroons. The word "black" should be used to describe those persons who have three-fourths or more black blood; "mulatto," those persons who have from three-eighths to five-eighths black blood; "quadroon," those persons who have one-fourth black blood; and "octoroon," those persons who have one-eighth or any trace of black blood.
1900 -- Color or race. — Write "W" for white; "B" for black (negro or of negro descent); "Ch" for Chinese; "JP" for Japanese, and "In" for Indian, as the case may be.
1910 -- Color or race.— Write "W" for white; "B" for black; "Mu" for mulatto; "Ch" for Chinese; "Jp" for Japanese; "In" for Indian. For all persons not falling within one of these classes, write "Ot" (for other), and write on the left-hand margin of the schedule the race of the person so indicated.
1920 -- Color or race. — Write "W" for white, "B" for black; "Mu" for mulatto; "In" for Indian; "Ch" for Chinese; "Jp" for Japanese; "Fil" for Filipino; "Hin" for Hindu; "Kor" for Korean. for all persons not falling within one of these classes, write "Ot" (for other), and write on the left-hand margin of the schedule the race of the person so indicated. For census purposes the term "black" (B) includes all Negroes of full blood, while the term "mulatto" (Mu) includes all Negroes having some proportion of white blood.
1930 –Color or race. — A person of mixed white and Negro blood should be returned as a Negro, no matter how small the percentage of Negro blood. Both black and mulatto persons are to be returned as Negroes, without distinction. A person of mixed Indian and Negro blood should be returned a Negro, unless the Indian blood predominates and the status as an Indian is generally accepted in the community.
Note in particular the repeated flip-flopping from 1890 to 1930, as the Jim Crow period clamped down.
As to the fraction of individuals recorded in some way as being a mix between "Negro" and "White," Phil345 assumes that there was once upon a time some consistent objective reality used to classify people. Not so. it varied dramatically by region, depending on the eye of the census-taker (based on local customs). In the earliest individual census (1850), there were very few Negroes in the Cumberland Plateau, even among individuals with Negro parents. There were also few Negros in Louisiana, Alabama, Florida, or South Carolina among property owners; if your had money, you were "colored" no matter your phenotype, no matter your parentage. It was more balanced in the midwest with many "Negroes" and a few "Mulattos." And children of interracial marriages might be classifed White, Mulatto or Negro. But New England followed the ODR from the very first individual census (1850), with large numbers of "Negroes" and virtually no "Mulattoes." Children of interracial marriages were invariably classified as Negro.
Last edited by fwsweet on Wed 26 Oct 2005 17:47; edited 1 time in total
Joined: 10 Oct 2005 {Posts: 11 } Location: Gulf Coast
Posted: Wed 19 Oct 2005 12:55 Post subject:
fwsweet wrote:
Fourth, if we limit his statement to just the federal decennial census, the federal censuses before 1850 (1790, 1800, 1810, 1820, 1830, 1840) recorded only the color of each family and did not “racially” classify individuals at all. Some state and county censuses classified individuals, but only starting in 1850 was each household member recorded individually at the federal level.
At least in the North, the "hash mark" censuses (so-called because they used a hash mark for individuals) did actually specify individual "color", although not consistently, and not beyond the general "Free People of Color" (which included everybody not "White"). Census precision was totally dependent upon the enumerators themselves. From my own family, for instance:
1820 NY - 1 Free White Female, husband and children all counted Free People of Color (various ages)
Another of my lines, also 1820 NY - 2 Free White Females, 6 Free People of Color (various ages)
In 1830, these two families merged by marraige, and at least one of the children specified as "FPOC" in 1820 counted "White" in this census, while her husband, who formerly had been counted "White", listed as a "FPOC".
It was amazingly subjective. It also apparently depended on who opened the door, and whether the census-taker knew the family personally. I have yet another line that was counted "white" in 1830 because their very light grand-daughter apparently answered the door (this is a conclusion on my part). Every other record of that particular family indicates they were "colored".
Without written corroboration (which only occasionally specified "color"), it is extremely difficult to distinguish mixed ancestry from the early records. I can't imagine being able to assign a generalized percentage.
It was amazingly subjective. It also apparently depended on who opened the door, and whether the census-taker knew the family personally. <snip> Without written corroboration (which only occasionally specified "color"), it is extremely difficult to distinguish mixed ancestry from the early records. I can't imagine being able to assign a generalized percentage.
Precisely. We can safely view census-takers' assessments as reflecting the social fashion at that specific time and locale. But we must not see such transient and local fashion as measuring degree of Afro-European admixture or even being based upon phenotype.
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