Joined: 31 May 2005 {Posts: 66 } Location: South Carolina
Posted: Tue 31 May 2005 23:41 Post subject: My Family and the One Drop Rule
There are people who think that I am ashamed of my black heritage or that I am ashamed of being black. That is further from the truth. I love black people, Africa, and being black. I hate the One Drop Rule. I think people should consider themselves whatever they wish without government laws which is what the rule is all about.
About my family, I am from South Carolina and here is the jist of my
genealogy. My maternal great-great grandmother and her family are 'whites' of English origin. Her youngest child, my great grandfather was a mulatto. Obviously his father was a 'black' man. He married woman who was 3/4 Indian and 1/4 Scottish. This mean that my grandmother was 3/8 Indian, 3/8 European, and 1/4 African but of course because of the one-drop rule she was black. She married my grandfather who was a dark-skinned 'black' man who could have been part Indian as well. The term 'black Indian' came to mind. This means that my mother was more than likely 3/16 Indian, 3/16 European, and 10/16 African. My
father may very well could have been part English or Irish, and may also be part Indian. I am only basing this on physical appearance of some of the people on his side of the family, history of slaves brought from Barbados (which included ancestors of my family), and on the fact that I know little about my father's side of the family and what I do know occured during the one drop rule. So basically I am most likely 3/4 African, 1/8 European, and 1/8 Indian.
What is so interesting is that I have learned much about race and history due to genealogy. I have learned that my 'white' great-grandmother had children who were either white or mulatto. The 1870 SC Census listed her and her children as white. However, my great-grandfather was born in 1884, so in the 1880 Census she and her children (who could also be mulattos) were listed as white because they had a European phenotype. By 1890, she the white woman and her children were considered mulatto, though she had no known black ancestry.
By 1900 she and her white and mulatto children were listed as black. When did the one drop rule take place in South Carolina? When did the racial line become more rigid? Before the 1890 Census there was a free people of color category or a mulatto category. My great grandmother died in 1910-1920 but because of her black listing (despite her English heritage) she was buried in a race-mixed not white cemetery. Were there always separate cemeteries for blacks and for whites? Were there ever a time when blacks and whites were buried together?
I have learned that my 'white' great-grandmother had children who were either white or mulatto. The 1870 SC Census listed her and her children as white. However, my great-grandfather was born in 1884, so in the 1880 Census she and her children (who could also be mulattos) were listed as white because they had a European phenotype. By 1890, she the white woman and her children were considered mulatto, though she had no known black ancestry. By 1900 she and her white and mulatto children were listed as black. When did the one drop rule take place in South Carolina? When did the racial line become more rigid? Before the 1890 Census there was a free people of color category or a mulatto category. My great grandmother died in 1910-1920 but because of her black listing (despite her English heritage) she was buried in a race-mixed not white cemetery. Were there always separate cemeteries for blacks and for whites? Were there ever a time when blacks and whites were buried together?
Let me answer your questions in reverse order.
“Were there always separate cemeteries for blacks and for whites?” -- No. Before the Civil War, most cemeteries (like public transportation, lodging, restaurants, and schools) were “racially” integrated. Slaves (White and Black) were often buried in different graveyards from free people (White and Black), but this is something else entirely. In fact, around 1876 a letter to the editor of the Richmond newspaper ridiculed proposals for segregated public transportation by asking, If we grant this, what is next? Will they then demand separate cemeteries? Will they someday demand separate bibles to swear on in court? Of course as we know, both of these eventually happened. The best source on the rise and triumph of the bizarre U.S. phenomenon known as “racial” segregation is C. Vann Woodward, The Strange Career of Jim Crow, 3d rev. ed. (New York: Oxford University, 1974).
“When did the one drop rule take place in South Carolina?” -- Technically speaking, the letter of South Carolina written laws never had a legally enforced one-drop rule. Even at the height of Jim Crow, wealthy people who looked White were accepted into the White group by court order. See, for instance, the story of Louetta Chassereau, which opens the essay The Rate of Black-to-White "Passing".
“When did the racial line become more rigid?” -- The year that South Carolina changed was 1895, during the Constitutional Convention held to disfranchise Blacks. At that time, many of South Carolina’s richest landowners were the biracial descendants of the Mulatto elite. By the custom of a dying past, they were still considered White. Then, a delegate recommended adopting a one-drop rule. Delegate George Tillman, brother of infamous “Pitchfork Ben” Tillman rose to argue against the proposal. [Pitchfork Ben was the politician who, upon hearing that President Roosevelt had dined with Booker T. Washington at the White House in October 1901, said, “Now we will have to kill a thousand niggers to get them back in their place.”] George Tillman knew that such a rule would redefine thousands of valued White citizens as Black, rip his state apart, and wreck its economy a second time. He rose to his feet saying:
George Tillman wrote:
If the law is made as it now stands respectable families in Aiken, Barnwell, Colleton, and Orangeburg will be denied the right to intermarry among people with whom they are now associated and identified. At least one hundred families would be affected to my knowledge. They have sent good soldiers to the Confederate Army, and are now landowners and taxpayers. Those men served creditably, and it would be unjust and disgraceful to embarrass them in this way. It is a scientific fact that there is not one full-blooded Caucasian on the floor of this convention. Every member has in him a certain mixture of... colored blood. The pure-blooded white has needed and received a certain infusion of darker blood to give him readiness and purpose. It would be a cruel injustice and the source of endless litigation, of scandal, horror, feud, and bloodshed to undertake to annul or forbid marriage for a remote, perhaps obsolete trace of Negro blood. ... etc.
George Tillman won the battle but lost the war. South Carolina did not adopt a written one-drop rule, but the public had already made up their minds. Tillman, like accursed Cassandra of Greek mythology, foresaw the future but was ignored. The one-drop rule became unwritten South Carolina custom. As he had predicted, there ensued a period of “endless litigation, scandal, malice and greed.” As the end of century approached, South Carolina’s biracial families were torn apart by the unwritten one-drop rule. Amid tears, knowing they would never see each other again, light complexioned descendants passed into the White world. Their darker brothers, sisters, and cousins merged into today’s African-American community. For details on these events, see the section titled “South Carolina” in The One-Drop Rule Arrives in the Postbellum Lower South.
A hundred years have passed. Genealogically inclined descendants like Gail, have begun to seek their roots. Family reunions are sometimes funny, sometimes sad, sometimes happy, always dramatic. Mary Lee showed me a videotape where the camera captured the weak smile of a White lady as she opened the door to meet her long-lost Black cousin for the first time. One can only imagine what Spielberg could do with the tale of the shattered fragments of South Carolina families, blindly seeking each other after a century of separation.
“By 1900 [my great-grandmother] and her white and mulatto children were listed as black.” -- This is because the new Jim Crow laws forced Whites to live apart from Blacks. She, her husband, and her children would have had to live apart and never socialize again, depending upon who was reported as White and who was reported as Black. Census-takers were usually sympathetic neighbors. White family members often asked to be recorded as Black in order to preserve their families, and the census-takers complied. (Also, even completely White families who socialized with Blacks were often made Black by court order. See Jim Crow Triumph of the One-Drop Rule for details.)
Nevertheless, it is important to understand that South Carolina before Jim Crow was not color blind. Blacks were treated harshly and Whites had absolute power over Blacks. What makes pre-Jim-Crow South Carolina interesting is that the South Carolina labels “Black” and “White” were as much socioeconomic class labels as “racial” ones. Read Chief Justice Harper’s decision in State v. Cantey, 1835.
Chief Justice Harper wrote:
We cannot say what admixture will make a colored person. The condition is not to be determined solely by visible mixture but by reputation and it may be proper, that a man of worth should have the rank of a white man, while a vagabond of the same degree of blood should be confined to the inferior caste.
In this sense, South Carolina before Jim Crow resembled Latin America today. In a different forum, Gail asked:
gera2561 wrote:
Are there any wealthy and middle class dark skinned people in Latin America? If so would they be considered 'white' because of their social status?
If Gail had asked the same questions about South Carolina before Jim Crow, “Were there any wealthy and middle class dark skinned people in pre-Jim Crow South Carolina? If so would they be considered 'white' because of their social status?” The answers would be “Yes.” And “Yes.”
Joined: 27 Nov 2004 {Posts: 1763 } Location: Hudson Valley, NY
Posted: Thu 02 Jun 2005 20:07 Post subject:
gera2561 wrote:
What is so interesting is that I have learned much about race and history due to genealogy. I have learned that my 'white' great-grandmother had children who were either white or mulatto. The 1870 SC Census listed her and her children as white. However, my great-grandfather was born in 1884, so in the 1880 Census she and her children (who could also be mulattos) were listed as white because they had a European phenotype. By 1890, she the white woman and her children were considered mulatto, though she had no known black ancestry.
By 1900 she and her white and mulatto children were listed as black. When did the one drop rule take place in South Carolina? When did the racial line become more rigid? Before the 1890 Census there was a free people of color category or a mulatto category.
Yes I share your same experience. Actually my study of my geneology helped sway me to the right of the political spectrum.
Enumerators where given instructions for the 1880 Census to tabulate those of a mixed white/black background as "mulatto" if they had a tint of European ancestry. That of course was in the judgement perception of the Enumerator. My great grand father in the 1880 Census in Virginia was mulatto as was his brothers and sisters and their mother. His father was "black". Most likely he was a "mulatto" being I have pictures of the both of them, he had blue or light eyes. He didn't really have a European phenotype, but it wasn't really African either.
The 1890 Census would be of great interest to mixed geneologists. Mulatto was broken down into "Quadroon" and "Octoroon". Unfortunately, most of this census was lost in a fire in 1921.
The 1900 Census, Enumerators were instructed not to use the Mulatto designation, to tabulate everyone as "black" who was known to be "black", or eye balled as such. Not quite sure why this was implemented.
1910 and 1920, the mulatto designation was used again with 1920 being the last year it was officially used.
A lot of SIB One Dropists are unaware of the fact that a mulatto category was used in the US Census from 1850-1920, with 1900 the exception.
Actually my study of my genealogy helped sway me to the right of the political spectrum.
Might I ask why? I am not well attuned to the nuances of the conservative-vs-liberal political spectrum, but I would be curious to know why mere genealogical knowledge would affect it.
Joined: 27 Nov 2004 {Posts: 1763 } Location: Hudson Valley, NY
Posted: Thu 02 Jun 2005 21:21 Post subject:
fwsweet wrote:
DChapman wrote:
Actually my study of my genealogy helped sway me to the right of the political spectrum.
Might I ask why? I am not well attuned to the nuances of the conservative-vs-liberal political spectrum, but I would be curious to know why mere genealogical knowledge would affect it.
Sure. My fathers side in particular. His grandmother was Hudson Valley born and bred. My great grandmothers' grandfather was most likely a descendant of French Huguenots and their slaves. He was rather an accomplished man without much of an education. He along with another ggg grandfather of mine almost set up a "black" college in Poughkeepsie, NY. It was chartered by the NYS legislature, but fell through because of opposition from NYC "black" ministers who were pushing for integration. My great grandmother was a graduate of the High School class of 1898. Her uncle was a well known lawyer in Poughkeepsie. My great grandfather mentioned in the above post was a self educated man, well known and well respected in the community. He sent 3 kids to college. I have wrote about all of this in my local newspaper. Being much of what I am telling you happened 80 to over 100 years ago, I think if one really wants to become educated, they can do it today. It was MUCH harder back then than it is now. I get tired of hearing the excuses. Those folks back then had it much harder, but they worked hard because that's how they were taught.
My great Aunts both died 6 years ago. I once asked them how their father would feel about reparations. They both said at the same time that he would be oppossed to it. His parents were slaves, though young when it ended. So if anyone had an excuse, it would have been him and his siblings, IMO. But they were all rather sucessfull.
I used to be a leftist. During the mid 90s I started to re-assess my thinking. That's around the same time I found out all this information on my family. Now I realize that they were the exception. But I think a lot changed as the wave of southern "blacks" migrated north.
My dads mother was southern, from Alabama. But she could "pass" if you will. Her father was white, though she didn't claim him. But her mothers people were somewhat accomplished. Her mulatto grandfather owned land (which is still in my family today), owned a hotel, had both black and white sharecroppers on his land. My grandmother, who died 32 years ago today, was educated, Calhoun Colored School in Calhoun, AL. It was a private bording school. My uncle and I think that her white father paid for it. Actually it's because of my grandmother that I took up an interest in One Drop. My mother had a tough time trying to convince me when I was 4, that she (and my dad) were black, because to me they looked white. Actually I was never convinced. Thus my interest in geneology, but I have expanded it.
Bottom line: I think that there is no excuse why "black" kids, or any kids for that matter not to be able to have a basic education and act educated. Now I know there are circumstances that might put a damper on their chances. My family was extremely lucky (as I am lucky!!!). But I do not think that were any better than anyone else. So if they could do it 80 to over 100 years ago, it should be able to be done today. No excuses. I don't know if that is "right wing", but it is considered as such by most, at least that's what I'm told!!!
'
FAQ
Search
Register
Log in
