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Connie,
Oh yes, NA identities were being stollen long before Columbus stepped off that darn boat!;) I am glad to hear other people with similar stories in their history. Perhaps in some X-File way our ancestors are trying to help us get this all strait by hooking us all up here. My understanding of Mulato has been the same as yours. This old copy of Webster’s New World Dictionary gives the same meaning…..Maybe that’s where the key lies…..New World thinking verses Old World thinking. Hopefully someone can set us strait. I just cant help getting grouchy at some of those Ashby ancestors of mine, their jaded English ways. Well, I’m glad we have each other. I hope to hear a lot more from you, Connie. Good journey! Lynella.:)
I probably shouldn’t try to explain this before I’m fully awake but here’s a basic explanation.
The colonists felt so threatened by the amount of racial mixing that was going on, they ennacted various laws against this.
Begining about 1681, Virginia passed several non-definitive laws (1681, 1688, 1704) regarding the rights of mixed-race people, the principle problem was all those White-Indian mixes.
Big problem ! Many of the large land owners, therefore politically powerful people in the colony, were of mixed-Indian descent and felt threatened by any such definitive law, but by 1721 they figured out a definition that worked for them. (a list of these families’ names reads like a who’s-who of colonial Virginia and the early U.S. – including 4 presidents.)
Many colonies adopted a version of this stronger 1721 Virginia law that became known as “The One Drop Rule”:
Any White or Indian person having one drop of Black blood is Black.
A Black person having one drop of White blood is Black.
An Indian having one drop of White blood is White.
(This law also specified what legal rights these various classes would have.)
This guaranteed that:
1) any child by a Black slave would also be a slave.
2) any euro-indian mixes would be considered white.
…..a) The large land owners of mixed-Indian descent would not have their lands confiscated. (This eventuality had been provided for in one of the earlier “laws” allowing some white colonists to “take up Indian land” that had previously been owned by their mixed-Indian relatives.)
Then it got complicated. Some of these people didn’t look White or Black. What do you call them? “Others except Indians not counted” was an early census classification but census takers were paid by the “piece” (per family listed) and were counting Indians (living outside Indian lands) as Whites or as “Others…”.
“Free Persons of Color” seemed to solve this problem. It didn’t, and why this was so would fill several books and has.
……………..
The definition of many words has changed over time.
Mulatto is one of them. On early records, a Black-White mixed person was Black, per the law. Most, if not all, “Mulatto” found on census records before 1880 were of Indian or mixed-Indian descent. Most of the names on Plecker’s “list” have descendants who say they were/are Indian.
Several went to prison insisting they were Indian, instead of bowing to Plecker’s claim that they register as Black.
Bill
Bill,
THANK YOU! And you got all that out before you were fully awake! I really appreciate this, ya’ know. I’m sure Connie and others will too. Awsome, just Awsome!:D Love & Light, Lynella.
Hey Bill thanx for that, after the laws expelled these folks from the eastern states , the mixed blood population moved into and onto the westard expanding frontier.
Tennessee and Kentucky etc became the new lands and many of our folks, mine very much included were amongst these people.
The real kicker is what they moved away from to create a better way of life, followed them still moving our folks farther west. , finally ending on the west coast.
Thanx again Bill.
Hey Tom!
It is a “real Kicker” too, isn’t it. It’s like, “you can run, but you can’t hide.” Some things just get stuck to ya’ like burs in a horses tail. It really blows! How is everything there at your end? I hope all is well. It started snowing here Sunday evening and we got about a foot. It’s so pretty. But, BR-R-R-R! When I got up this morning it was 13 degrees. I want one of those red union suits, I bet they’re warm. You know, the long one piece underwear you see the cowboys wearing in the movies. I wonder where I could find me a pair of those. I wonder if the army/navy surplus would have them? Well, you’re a guy, maybe you know where I could get some. Maybe a big farm & feed supply would have them…….Hmmmmm. Well, stay warm. Love & light, Lynella.:D
There is one interesting exception to the one drop rule. Paul Heinegg, in his research on the Free Persons of Color found a very interesting fact. The majority of these people were the children of white indentured servant women, quite often Irishwomen, and black men.
It’s my contention that something primal was hit upon socially. White society simply was not able to adequately dehumanize or objectify the children of these women, and could not bring itself to condemn them to hereditary slavery. The law was that slavery was inherited through the mother. Any child whose mother was a slave, was also a slave.
I believe this phenomena is what fueled the intense taboo against this type of couple. And also explains why, historically, in the sixties and seventies these couples suddenly re-emerged, as the vestiges of this peculiar institution were finally being dismantled.
Hi Linda,
How are you? I hope all is well. That is extremely interesting indeed. Yep I could see it, the entire social “id” as a whole had those “TILT, TILT, TILT” signs flashing before their eyes like that ol’ coyote in the Roadrunner cartoons and what could they do….. Very interesting. Thank you for that input. I be thinking on this in my sleep all night. Love & Light, Lynella.:)
Linda,
Much of what you say is true at a later time.
I think you and I are talking about different time-periods. While both of our time periods have to do with a time that indentured white women were indeed mostly Irish, Scots-Irish and English indentured “servants” whose “Indenturtude” was often for life due to “add-on time” for small infractions (and yes, sometimes the landowner’s wife dallied – per court records), I was referring to the 1600s and very early 1700s as the “One Drop Rule” ‘s basis was being developed, when the majority of the male slaves in Virginia were Indian, not Blacks. There were few Black slaves there in the 1680’s and most slaves were Indians from the interior – ditto the carolinas until the 1720s. The majority of the “slaves” in the mid- to late 1600s in Virginia were Indian, not Black. (Yes, there were legal restrictions placed on enslaving Indian as well as White people, but all Indentures were extendable for almost any reason, and looking at those court records, they often were.)
It was a different story after the 1720s in the Carolinas, but even then, advertisements placed to entice “planters” to immigrate and specifically to the Georgia Colony, advised “likely” settlers to buy a Black male with some Female Indian slaves to ensure success.
Bill
Hello, I have heard that during the late 1700’s there were 30 000 indian slaves in the Carolinas and VA!
Thank you Bill. You’re always so informative.
And Tom, dang! That’s a lot! A lot more than I had imagined. Dear God, it’s hiddeous! That would be…..a darn lot of people. I just don’t understand how anyone could have ever had the cahooneys to be such poop heads! That is so wrong! A-r-g-h!
Lynella.
Hi everyone,
For the last several weeks I have been reading as much as I
could any information documenting Indian slavery in NC. It seems
that Indian slavery was as extensive as African & existed side by
side in almost all the colonies in Colonial America. To arrive at any
knowledge of the exact number of Indian slaves is impossible, due
to infrequent or none, census reports or vital statistics, in the early colonies.
It is believed that Indian slaves were not mentioned at all, and were classified with black slaves without distintion. During the
colonial period, the Southern & New England colonies were the
areas that employed Indian slave labor most extensively.” The Coree Are Not Extinct ” is an article I read because of my research
of my Indian ancestry in eastern coastal NC, Beaufort, Ayden, New
Bern counties. The author of this article is Al Pate who mentioned
that not many people want to talk about or admit that Indian slavery existed.
Chp.31 Indian slavery was not a uniquely N. Carolinean institution in the 17& 1800’s even though S.C & Virginia outlawed it, N.C did not. Indian slaves were held as coloreds, mulattoes
etc. in all the slave states, until after the civil war.
Archibald Henderson ( North Carolina The Old North State And The
New )
1679
Old Albemarle, Virginias first frontier
The settlements along the north side of the sound from the Chowan to Currituck contained about 1400 persons between the
ages of 16- 61, one third being women and negro and indian slaves.The Albemarle colony was an interesting frontier experiment, both before and after its detachment from Virginia. The social and economic was as in Virginia the plantation. Besides
the owners family there were indentured servants, indian and negro slaves.No village centers had developed up to the end of
the 17th century.
The Overflow Into The Piedmont
Tribes dwelling south and west provided an aggregate of 50,000
skins anually brought into Charles Town by water and overland
ways and put on vessels for shipment to England. The only NC
Indians mentioned cotributing to this trade were the Cherokee.
Skins or furs were not the only product for which the cloths, beads, axes, guns and ammunition were exchanged. In the words
of official report of 1708, the furs and skins offered by the distant
Chickasaws were scarcely worth the expense of carriage ” Slaves”
is what we have in exchange for our goods which ( slaves ) these
people take from several nations of Indians that live beyond them.
Indian Slavery In Colonial Times Within The Present Limits Of The United States
Almon Wheeler Lauber PH.D copyright 1913
PREFACE: Thesis purpose was to bring to light the neglected
phase of early American History , the enslavement of Indians.
The extensiveness of Negro slavery in comparison with Indian slavery has so emphasized the former that in the study of the
institution in general; the existance of Indian slavery during the
colonial period has almost entirely been lost sight of. No special
attention has been given to the subject of Indian slavery and has
made the gathering of material difficult.
TO BE CONTINUED
Indian slaves were recognized as property in all the English colonies, and were openly bought and sold at both public and
private sales like blacks and other property. They were advertised
in colonial newspapers with statements of their qualifications and
ability to work, their ages, and sometimes descriptions of their
personal appearance.
It was not uncommon for slaves offered for sale to choose their
future owner from those who wanted to purchase them, or to
approve the bill of sale. Like other property, Indian slaves could
be given away by word of mouth, or last will and testament. In
S.Carolina where Indian slaves were numerous, the records of
their disposal by will are frequent. The custom was universal in
the colonies.
All the colonies enacted fugitive slave laws. Some of these laws
were applied to slaves in general, some to negroes and ” other “
slaves, still others to Negro, Mulatto and Indian slaves.
The colonies where slavery was of greatest extent had the most
extensive and elaborate laws on the subject, and those colonies
where Indian slavery existed to any considerable extent included
the term ” Indian Slaves” in their laws.
Jan 9, 1713
The Council of NC considered the matter of two Indian slaves sent
to the colony from Virginia, and found that they belonged to two
residents of SC from whom presumably, they had been stolen.
The Council acknowledged the owners claim to right of possession ordered that the Indians be delivered to Col. James
Moore ” for the use and on behalf of the owners “
The colonial courts were sometimes called upon to settle disputes
regarding the ownership of Indian slaves.
Nov 24, 1777
Complaint was made to the NC House of Commons by a slave
owner whose Indian slave had been taken by two other
Carolinians , The House appointed a commitee to investigate the
matter. Similar instances in other years are recorded in connection
with NC.
Under the caption of ” property ” both Black and Indian slaves
were subject to taxation like other property, for colonial revenue
or to meet local expenses. In certain colonies both Indian and
Black slaves were subject to a poll and property tax.
NC Act 1703 contained general term slaves included Indian slaves
by implication. NC during the 18th century regarded Indian slaves
as taxables.In the earliest legislative action of the colony, taxables
were declared to be every white male aged 16yrs, and every
slave,Black, Mulatto, or Mustee, and every other person of mixed
blood to the 4th generation 12yrs of age.
In one Virginia colony the term”Mulatto” was made to include
Indians. NC Act of 1705, which provided that the child of an Indian
should be deemed, accounted, held and taken to be a mulatto.
Processes of Indian Enslavement
Slavery BY BIRTH
Common Law of Nations, Civil Law, and Jewish Law, the children
of a slave mother became at birth the property of the mother’s
owner. SC law 1712,1722, 1735 declared that with the exception
of certain individuals freed by the government all Negroes, Mulattoes, Mustizoes, or Indians which at any time heretofore
have been sold, or now held or taken to be, or hereafter shall be
bought and sold as slaves to all intents and purposes.
Virgina 1703, decreed that children of female Mullatoes or Indians
obliged by law to serve till the age of 30 or 31 should serve the
master or mistress of such Mulatto or Indian until they should
attain the same age as that up to which the mother was obliged
by law to serve.
Virginia 1705 declared all children bond or free according to the
condition of their mothers.
Though the law was of brief duration, persons born of the union
between slaves and free white women , and the descendants of
such persons , were held in slavery down to 1791, when the
highest court of the state decided that for want of proof concerning the white woman who originally married a slave her
decendants were not slaves, and could not be legally held as such.
To Be Continued
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