The Study of Racialism

There were many tens of thousands of such cases. Slavery was matrilineal. Since 1661, the offspring of free mothers and slave fathers were automatically free, no matter what color they were. This was never remarked on nor challenged in any U.S. region.

Your question conflates social class (slave versus free) and endogamous group membership (White versus Black). Split these concepts apart.

First, how many genetically "White" but legally enslaved Americans were there in, say 1860? The best guess is several tens of thousands (out of the 4 million slaves at the time). The best source for their stories is Lawrence Raymond Tenzer, The Forgotten Cause of the Civil War: A New Look at the Slavery Issue (Manahawkin NJ: Scholars' Pub. House, 1997).

Second, how many U.S. Blacks in 1860 had no record of slave ancestry in their families? Again, the best guess is several tens of thousands (out of the 400,000 free blacks at the time). The best source for their stories is Adelaide M. Cromwell, The Other Brahmins: Boston's Black Upper Class, 1750-1950 (Fayetteville: University of Arkansas, 1994).

You seem to be asking about the first group (people who were genetically "White" but legally slaves) when they were freed. The vast majority (like Eston Hemings) simply became White citizens with no fuss. Since my field is legal history of the color line, I have collected detailed stories only on those cases where the person's subsequent social Whiteness was challenged in court and the decision was then appealed. There were about 300 such appealed court cases. Judging from other statistics, this means that there must have been about 3,000 such court cases that were never appealed, and about 300,000 situations that were never brought to trial.

Virginia was on the edge between the harsh color line of the north and the permeable color line of the slave states. Among the more interesting Virginia tales are those of Eston's wife Julia Ann, James West, David and Nancy Isaacs, and the Wharton family. To read their stories, I would urge you to buy a copy of my book, Legal History of the Color Line.

The deeper South has fewer interesting stories. This is because in antebellum South Carolina, Alabama, and Louisiana (to say nothing of Spanish Florida) virtually all of the native-born elite White families acknowledged distant slave ancestry. Again, see Legal History of the Color Line.


You mean after they were freed. If a person is legally a slave, then "White" or "Black" are meaningless. The U.S. endogamous color line applies only to free people. In any event, "overwhelming" is a poor choice of term. The ODR became popular culture consensus during the Jim Crow era. Prior blood fraction laws ranged from one-half (Ohio and Massachusetts) to one-eighth (North Carolina, Louisiana). The notion that you had to be of "overwhelming" European ancestry to be considered White would have seemed strange in most of the antebellum United States. In ordinary day-to-day life you were White if you "looked White," no matter who your relatives were, and nobody but lawyers in court cared about invisible ancestry, until around 1900.

This how I see the spectrum in simple lay-person terms: Nordic, Anglo, Russian, White.

Nordic-Anglo-Russian = VIP lounge

French/Italian White = Members

Hispanic (white) = entry to the club



True, but clearly many do play up to those stereotypes.


And law enforcers continue to see darker skinned people in this way, decade after decade. At some point you accept the way society wants to paint you. Of course, you have to negotiate and challenge those distorted views.


Promoting positive images is all well and good, like tolerance. But the crunch comes with real acceptance. Then if blacks repeat Malcolm X's question...what do you call a black man with a Phd? The wider society will not answer N*****.


I’ve read posts on OneDropRule talking about how that is the fashion now, but how many actually engage with the stated heritage?



Isn't it possible that her mother was white and a slave?
Something I wouldn't have thought occured before reading Frank's essays. The perpetuation of slavery down the maternal line is another fact unknown to me. This makes an interesting relation to the patriarchial mode of western socieites.

Indeed, this was the very point that the Virginia colony legislators found hard to swallow in 1661. Plan-A was matrilineal slavery. Plan-B was patrilineal slavery. They debated it to death precisely because ancient British tradition traced social status through the father. The only analogy they could come up with was that livestock ownership in Britain was traced through the mother. And so, they had to decide between (plan-A) violating ancient patrilineal tradition and dehumanizing slaves on the one hand, versus (plan-B) sustaining tradition, treating slaves like people, and freeing the children of male slaveowners on the other hand. They went with Plan-A and the rest is history.

Oddly enough, the Maryland colony had the same debate and went with Plan-B. 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.

Frank, do any of your essays cover how freed slaves proved their status?


Then what is all the scholarship (including the Jonathan W. Warren and France Winddance Twine paper in the Racial Ideologies and Racial Methodologies thread) about Irish, Italians and others only becoming “white” in the mid 19th and 20th century about? I have query around the George Reid Andrews paper you summarized in that thread but will post it over there at some point.

There are certainly some Russians, even those who are considered White Russians, who wouldn't be considered white by many Americans, due to visible Asiatic ancestry. There are Frenchmen and Italians, particularly from the south of those countries -- Aquitaine, Gascony, Auvergne, Provence, and Calabria, Apulia, Campania, Sicily -- who would most certainly not be admitted to this hypothetical "club." My co-worker is Sicilian, and his natural complexion is considerably darker than that of my African-American brother-in-law. When my co-worker tans, he looks downright black. Conversely, I've seen many Spaniards, particularly northerners, and many Portuguese, also northerners and Azoreans, who are blonde-haired and blue-eyed, and would have no trouble being accepted into the "club" if external traits were the governing factor. The point is there is variability everywhere. Heck, in Wales, I saw quite a few swarthy natives.

You mean what evidence they presented that they were legally free, compared to the evidence presented by their alleged owners that they were not free? Sure. During the antebellum era, especially after the Fugitive Slave Act, many cases were about slave status. If either party could come up with persuasive evidence of maternal lineage, then it was a done deal. Where things got interesting was when lineage was unknown and where it varied depending on how far back you look.

Where lineage was unknown, it tended to go by appearance. If you looked pure African you were out of luck but if you looked even slightly European, you were freed.

Where lawyers earned their money was in investigation. I recall one case where the plaintiff (an alleged slave) looked completely African and the defendant (the alleged owner) proved that the plaintiff's mother was also African-looking slave. But the plaintiff's attorney proved that the mother's mother was a mulatto slave, and her mother in turn was three-fourths white slave, and her mother in turn was an immigrant free Scotswoman who had married an African slave. Hence, four generations back the matrilineal chain was broken, and so the plaintiff won his case. (The owner appealed it and lost again.)


The short answer is that neither Germans nor Irish "looked White" to Americans of the time. (Italians came much later.) You can see this in Benjamin Franklin's statement that Germans are to swarthy to pass for White. And you can see it in anti-Irish political cartoons, which portrayed them as grotesque monkeys.

The long answer is that despite their struggle for acceptance, European (and even Asian) immigrants and Native Americans were never separated from the mainstream by a multi-generation endogamous barrier. Their out-marriage rate was the same as as Puerto Rican or Japanese-American out-marriage rates today (ten times today's Black out-marriage rate). Consequently, their descendants were mixed and could claim whichever heritage was most useful on any specific occasion.

Ultimately, the difference is the endogamous color line. Without an endogamous barrier, people intermingle and form syncretic cultures (as Omar never tires of telling us). But with an endogamous barrier in place, one population can successfully oppress another for thousands of years (as you can see in today's Hindu India).

On that last, consider John Rhys-Davies, a Welshman, who has played Portuguese and Arabs.

OMG! I never knew John Rhys-Davies was Welsh. I always assumed he was Arabic, and that was just his stage name.

You learn something new everyday...

(Very good actor by the way)




I believe Tom Jones, and Catherine Zeta-Jones are also Welsh.

They also share that "ethnic" look...





Then just look at Ralph Fiennes (one of my favorite English Actors) and his brother Joseph Fiennes. I was initially shocked to discover they were brothers. Ralph gave a very convincing portrayal of the sadistic Nazi Amon Goeth in Schindler's List. Where as his brother Joseph could easily have played one of the persecuted Jews...







Ralph took after his Nordic looking father while Joseph took after his mother who had more of a Mediterranean look...

http://ralph-fiennes.net/biography.htm

Hi,

I know France has both Mediterranean and Nordic looking people, but what people don't usually know is that England has both types, too.

After all "Britania" was a Roman colony like Gaul and Hispania, and we should not forget that England is pretty close to both France and Spain. And those countries are not only Mediterranean but Celt as well.

I believe it is even possible the "Nordic" look of many Brits came from the times of the Viking and Germanic invasions.

Perhaps even King Arthur was Mediterranean looking.

Regards,

Omar Vega

Around the time he received his knighthood, I heard Sir Tom, had come clean about what may account for his soulful baritone voice, sexy stage act and swarthy looks. But I can't seem to find any websites that broach the subject. All they say is his father was a coalminer.

Don't know how the Los Angeles and Las Vegas sun is treating him, but his hair appears to have gotten decidely more afro-like in his later years.

Most general histories of Britain list Mediterraneans or Iberians as among the first peoples of Britian. The Celts came later, but were themselves a heterogeneous population, and in most cases "Celtic" culture in far flung places like Britain was primarily the adoption of such culture by the local peoples, since the diverse groups we now call Celts were originally from southern Germany, Austria, eastern France, and Switzerland. I would agree with you that much of the "Nordicness" of Britain was introduced with the Angles, Saxons, and Jutes, and later, the Danes. That's why in Wales, there are fewer Nordics, since the Germanic and Viking invasions were far less pronounced there.

It's amazing how many people are surprised to find that there exist dark-complected Brits and blonde/blue-eyed Portuguese and Spaniards.

Oevega wrote:


William wrote:


True. One swarthy Brit - who has always reminded me of John Amos from Good Times - is Bob Hoskins...




If you look closely at their features, you'll notice they're almost identical. They share the same short stocky build too.

Altertude wrote:


That's a shame. If you come across any information in the future regarding Tom's possible disclosure please share it here.

That's incredible! I of course have long been familiar with both of them, but never noticed the similarities in their facial features! That just reinforces the fact (already known by us) that traits Americans consider "racially" important truly are not peculiar to one specific "racial" group.

Regarding Tom Jones's ancestry, while of course many Welshmen are naturally dark-complected (without recent African ancestry), and while I don't have any information specifically on Jones, I do recall reading that there has been a Black population in Cardiff, Wales for centuries; naturally, some of these Blacks were absorbed by the majority population. I also know that there were several tens of thousands of Blacks scattered throughout the large English cities from the 1500's to the 1800's, and that a great deal of these were eventually absorbed into the working-class White population. DNA tests on White Britons, of course, bear this out.

Hi,

I think we got an important point in here.

People of different "races" sometimes look quite similar. Sometimes two individuals that belong to two totally distinct "races" are more similar between themselves that with the neighbour next door who belong to the same group.

Why that happens? In the cases of the pictures shown above, both individuals have almost the same face proportions: the ratio long versus wide of the face, hair line, size of the nose, etc. So they are classified close by our brain immediately. That does not mean they are genetically related, though.

The "racial" differences are obvious as well, like skin color, hair type, brows, ears, etc, but does not seem to matter much to our brain.

I believe that is a good demostration we belong to the same species: we have certain differences, like the roman and siamese cats, but we are all "cats" after all. And all cats catch mice, don't they?

Omar Vega

You're thinking of the community of Tiger Bay, I think.

Hi,

There are many so called "caucasians" have the same features that Jones.
Arabs, for instance, and many French as well.

I believe there is a problem with the idea that a brown person MUST BE the result of the mixture of a Subsaharian African with a White Nordic. It might be so in the case of Jones, but is not always the case.

Think in terms of populations instead of races. If so, it is easy to see that "genes" diffuse with time, and that there is a cline between Northern Europe and Western Africa. Populations of genes behave like waves in a pool. Waves go from north to south and viceversa. It is easy to see how. No other think shows genetics: populations side by side.

That model show that necesarily there is a cline. If somebody walks from Nigeria to Egypt, then to Persian and India and to China, and then follows the path to Russia, Spain, Morocco and back to Nigeria, ...

I BET he would never find a barrier between two races, because there is none.

Regards,

Omar Vega

A picture of an AfroBrit who fought in the US Civil War.

It's odd what this forum accepts as fact. Self-identities, against social and cultural confines, are not facts. Yet, they are accepted as such, by this forum, provided those self-identities are anything besides Black, and based on genetic theories which can't be proven with 100% accuracy. DNA data, cited essays, court cases, articles, reports and books, which all serve to support and further the ideas of Frank W. Sweet, the founder of this forum, are accepted as fact. Yet, any opposing data, essays, court cases, etc. are never mentioned. As I've stated in my original post, 'You cannot make up the rules to suit your needs as you go along.'

My two questions have been avoided like HIV by this forum. Are the questions not understood? Or is it that FACTUAL answers to my questions would not further the agenda of this forum and that of the forum's founder? If we are to deal exclusively in facts here, then both sides of the argument must be presented, examined and dissected with equal respect, prudence and objectivity.

However, while looking about the various threads of this forum, I noted that anyoe who opposed fwsweet's positions was made to look a liar and idiot and, sometimes, ganged up on by various members of this forum; all of whom blindly follow fwsweet's lead.



So, we can question the President, we can question the constitution, we can question religion, we can question the one drop rule, we can question the color line but, God help us if we question Frank W. Sweet.

Oh yeah, fwsweet, in the sentence which follows that quote you left out the word 'to'.



Yet, fwsweet shot me down for presenting Clotel to support my position because it's fiction literature.



Then how could Clotel advocate the ODR when it was published in 1853--during slavery? William Wells Brown, the author and escaped slave, died in 1884. How could he advocate an ODR statute that wasn't written until 26 years AFTER his death? William Wells Brown was, in fact, an abolitionist NOT a 'one-dropper'.

PREFACE TO CLOTEL

More than two hundred years have elapsed since the first cargo of slaves was landed on the banks of the James River, in the colony of Virginia, from the West coast of Africa. From the introduction of slaves in 1620, down to the period of the separation of the Colonies from the British Crown, the number had increased to five hundred thousand; now there are nearly four million. In fifteen of the thirty-one States, Slavery is made lawful by the Constitution, which binds the several States into one confederacy.

On every foot of soil, over which Stars and Stripes wave, the Negro is considered common property, on which any white man may lay his hand with perfect impunity. The entire white population of the United States, North and South, are bound by their oath to the constitution, and their adhesion to the Fugitive Slave Law, to hunt down the runaway slave and return him to his claimant, and to suppress any effort that may be made by the slaves to gain their freedom by physical force. Twenty-five millions of whites have banded themselves in solemn conclave to keep four millions of blacks in their chains. In all grades of society are to be found men who either hold, buy, or sell slaves, from the statesmen and doctors of divinity, who can own their hundreds, down to the person who can purchase but one.

Were it not for persons in high places owning slaves, and thereby giving the system a reputation, and especially professed Christians, Slavery would long have since been abolished. The influence of the great "honours the corruption, and chastisement doth therefore hide his head." The great aim of the true friends of the slave should be to lay bare the institution, so that the gaze of the world may be upon it, and cause the wise, the prudent, and the pious to withdraw their support from it, and leave it to its own fate. It does the cause of emancipation but little good to cry out in tones of execration against the traders, the kidnappers, the hireling overseers, and brutal drivers, so long as nothing is said to fasten the guilt on those who move in a higher circle.

The fact that slavery was introduced into the American colonies, while they were under the control of the British Crown, is a sufficient reason why Englishmen should feel a lively interest in its abolition; and now that the genius of mechanical invention has brought the two countries so near together, and both having one language and one literature, the influence of British public opinion is very great on the people of the New World.

If the incidents set forth in the following pages should add anything new to the information already given to the Public through similar publications, and should thereby aid in bringing British influence to bear upon American slavery, the main object for which this work was written will have been accomplished.

W. Wells Brown
22, Cecil Street, Strand, London.

'Clotel' contains extensive notes which point to documented fact to back up its statements. Actual sermons, lectures, political pamphlets, newspaper advertisements, etc. The first fifty pages of 'Clotel' are narrative of documented fact which provide the backdrop of the fiction portion of the book. 'Clotel' was also circulated as 'The Beautiful Quadroon: A Romance of American Slavery Founded on Fact'. 'Clotel' is accurately defined as a 'docudrama'. 'Clotel' is more than a novel, it is founding text. A brilliantly composed and richly detailed exploration of human relations in a New World in which race is a cultural construct.
- M. Giulia Fabi, author of 'Passing and the Rise of the African American Novel', teaches American literature at the University of Ferrara, Italy

Fwsweet, you owe me an apology. You attempted to paint me a babbling lunatic before this forum because I'd cited Clotel as a source. Clotel, a book you've clearly never read.

Concerning the Thomas Jefferson-Sally Hemings fiasco, I point to Prof. David N. Mayer's 'The Thomas Jefferson-Sally Hemings Myth and the Politicization of American History' (2001) and 'Report of the Research Committee on Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings' by the Thomas Jefferson Foundation (January, 2000).

Should you decided to read either the TJF's report or Prof. Mayer's essay, you'll note that the fwsweet Eston Hemings' story is a gross distortion of historical fact.



By 1890, every Southern state except Louisiana had an anti-miscegenation law on its books, and Louisiana re-enacted its statute in 1894. The post-Reconstruction laws demonstrated greater uniformity than the antebellum statutes had. All banned interracial marriage, some banned interracial cohabitation, but no state banned interracial sex. Like their antebellum precedents, the statutes were selectively enforced targeting public, formal relationships between interracial couples, especially black males and white females. As prior to the war, the appearance of intimacy within a domestic interracial relationship threatened racial assumptions and drew public condemnation.
- Charles F. Robinson II 'Dangerous Liaisions: Sex and Love in the Segregated South' (2003)



The original Ku Klux Klan was organized by ex-Confederate soldiers near Pulaski, TN in May, 1866 to oppose the Reconstruction policies of the radical Republican Congress and to maintain 'white supremacy'. Deriving its membership from native-born, white Protestant United States citizens, the Ku Klux Klan has opposed all those it does not view as 'racially pure'.

After the Civil War, when local government in the South was weak or nonexistent and there were fears of black outrages and even of an insurrection, informal vigilante organizations or armed patrols were formed in almost all communities. These were linked together in societies, such as the Pale Faces, the Men of Justice, the White Brotherhood, the Constitutional Union Guards, and the Order of the White Rose. The Ku Klux Klan was the best known of these and in time absorbed many of the smaller organizations. Its strange disguises, its silent parades, its midnight rides, its mysterious language and commands, were found to be most effective in playing upon fears and superstitions. Although the Ku Klux Klan was often able to achieve its aims by terror alone, whippings and lynchings were also used, mainly, but not only, against blacks but also against the so-called carpetbaggers and scalawags.
- The Columbia Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition (2001-05)



1. 45% of black families own homes compared to 73% of their white counterparts.
2. The median income for black families is only sixty percent of the median income for white families.
3. Studies have shown that affluent black families found it harder to obtain a real estate loan than do low-income white families.
- The International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination

If "tens of thousands of White Americans" were the true victims of slavery then, wouldn't those stats be reversed?

Fwsweet, please, please continue posting your 'FACTS'. Just know that everyone here is NOT blindly following your lead. Then again, since I had the temerity to dispute your 'FACTS', I might not last long around here.

~us

Please feel free to bring up opposing "data, essays, court cases, etc."


There could be many reasons why no one wants to answer your questions: they may be uninteresting, they may have been buried within a long stretch of polemic, or they may be clearly rhetorical. Perhaps you could ask them again.


Thank you.


This confuses legislation with popular culture. As explained in detail in The Invention of the One-Drop Rule in the 1830's North, the ODR first appeared in popular culture in the North 20 years before Clotel. But it was first legislated into state laws nearly a century later. Most abolitionists preached the ODR. Virtually all biracial slaveowners rejected it.


Please make available those reports and I would be happy to read them. In return, you might want to read The Official Report of the Thomas Jefferson Memorial Foundation. Please point out any distortion, gross or not.


You are confusing the Jim Crow era with slavery. Slavery ended in 1865. You are also confusing laws against intermarriage (the first was in 1691) with those saying that even the slightest African ancestry makes you Black (first law in 1910).


Of course not. Free White Americans (even those with a distant slave ancestor) never suffered the oppression, terrorism, and economic stifling that U.S. society inflicted upon Black Americans (even those with free ancestors).

Much of Urban Scribe's post addresses the posting rules. Discussion of the posting rules and other site policies should be handled in the "Site Magagement" forum.