The Journal of Negro History Volume III Part 36

Dr. H. K. W. k.u.mm's history of modern missionary work has appeared with imprint of MacMillan with the t.i.tle _African Missionary Heroes and Heroines_.

Doubleday, Page and Company announce the appearance of _Education and Life_, by Doctor Francis Greenwood Peabody, of Harvard University.

This is a short history of Hampton Inst.i.tute during the last fifty years, prepared at the request of the trustees.

THE JOURNAL

OF

NEGRO HISTORY

VOL. III--OCTOBER, 1918--NO. 4

THE BEGINNINGS OF THE MISCEGENATION OF THE WHITES AND BLACKS

Although science has uprooted the theory, a number of writers are loath to give up the contention that the white race is superior to others, as it is still hoped that the Caucasian race may be preserved in its purity, especially so far as it means miscegenation with the blacks. But there are others who express doubt that the integrity of the dominant race has been maintained.[442] Scholars have for centuries differed as to the composition of the mixed breed stock const.i.tuting the Mediterranean race and especially about that in Egypt and the Barbary States. In that part of the dark continent many inhabitants have certain characteristics which are more Caucasian than negroid and have achieved more than investigators have been willing to consider the civilization of the Negro. It is clear, however, that although the people of northern Africa cannot be cla.s.sed as Negroes, being bounded on the south by the ma.s.ses of African blacks, they have so generally mixed their blood with that of the blacks that in many parts they are no nearer to any white stock than the Negroes of the United States.

This miscegenation, to be sure, increased toward the south into central Africa, but it has extended also to the north and east into Asia and Europe. Traces of Negro blood have been found in the Malay States, India and Polynesia. In the Arabian Peninsula it has been so extensive as to const.i.tute a large group there called the Arabised Negroes. But most significant of all has been the invasion of Europe by persons of African blood. Professor Sergi leads one to conclude that the ancient Pelasgii were of African origin or probably the descendants of the race which settled northern Africa and southern Europe, and are therefore due credit for the achievements of the early Greek and Italian civilizations.[443]

There is much evidence of a further extension of this infusion in the Mediterranean world.

"Recent discoveries made in the vicinity of the princ.i.p.ality of Monaco and others in Italy and western France," says MacDonald, "would seem to reveal ... the actual fact that many thousand years ago a negroid race had penetrated through Italy into France, leaving traces at the present day in the physiognomy of the peoples of southern Italy, Sicily, Sardinia and western France, and even in the western parts of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. There are even at the present day some examples of the Keltiberian peoples of western Scotland, southern and western Wales, southern and western Ireland, of distinctly negroid aspect, and in whose ancestry there is no indication whatever of any connection with the West Indies or with Modern Africa. Still more marked is this feature in the peoples of southern and western France and of the other parts of the Mediterranean already mentioned."[444]

Because of the temperament of the Portugese this infusion of African blood was still more striking in their country. As the Portugese are a good-natured people void of race hate they did not dread the miscegenation of the races. One finds in southern Portugal a "strong Moorish, North African element" and also an "old intermixture with those Negroes who were imported thither from Northwest Africa to till the scantily populated southern provinces."[445] This miscegenation among the Portugese easily extended to the New World. Then followed the story of the Caramarii, the descendants of the Portugese, who after being s.h.i.+pwrecked near Bahia arose to prominence among the Tupinambo Indians and produced a clan of half-castes by taking to himself numerous native women.[446] This admixture served as a stepping stone to the a.s.similation of the Negroes when they came.

There immigrated later into Brazil other settlers who, mixing eagerly with the Amerindians, gave rise to a race called Mamelucos who began to mix maritally with the imported Negro women. The French and Dutch too in caring for their offspring by native women promoted the same.

"They educated them, set them free, lifted them above servitude, and raised them socially to the level of the whites"[447] so that today generally speaking there are no distinctions in society or politics in Brazil. Commenting on this condition in Brazil, Aga.s.siz said: "This hybrid cla.s.s, although more marked here because the Indian is added, is very numerous in all cities; perhaps, the fact, so honorable to Brazil, that the free Negro has full access to all privileges of any free citizen, rather tends to increase than to dimmish that number."

After emanc.i.p.ation in Brazil in 1888, the already marked tendency toward this fusion of the slave and the master cla.s.ses gradually increased.[448]

The Spaniards mixed less freely with the Negroes than did the Portugese but mixed just the same. At first they seriously considered the inconveniences which might arise from miscegenation under frontier conditions and generally refrained from extensive intermingling. But men are but men and as Spanish women were far too few in the New World at that time, the other s.e.x of their race soon yielded to the charms of women of African blood. The rise of the mixed breeds too further facilitated the movement. Spaniards who refused to intermingle with the blacks found it convenient to approach the hybrids who showed less color. In the course of time, therefore, the a.s.similation of the blacks was as p.r.o.nounced in some of the Spanish colonies as in those which originally exhibited less race antipathy. There are millions of Hispanicized Negroes in Latin America. Many of the mixed breeds, however, have Indian rather than Negro blood.[449]

Miscegenation had its best chance among the French. Not being disinclined to mingle with Negroes, the French early faced the problem of the half caste, which was given consideration in the most human of all slave regulations, the _Code Noir_.[450] It provided that free men who had children from their concubinage with women-slaves (if they consented to such concubinage) should be punished by a fine of two thousand pounds of sugar. But if the offender was the master himself, in addition to the fine, the slave should be taken from him, sold for the benefit of the hospital and never be allowed to be freed; excepting, that, if the man was not married to another person at the time of his concubinage, he was to marry the woman slave, who, together with her children, should thereby become free. Masters were forbidden to constrain slaves to marry against their will. Many Frenchmen like those in Haiti married their Negro mistresses, producing attractive half caste women who because of their wealth were sought by gentlemen in preference to their own women without dot.

Among the English the situation was decidedly different. There was not so much need for the use of Negro women by Englishmen in the New World, but there was the same tendency to cohabit with them. In the end, however, the English, unlike the Latins, disowned their offspring by slave women, leaving these children to follow the condition of their mother. There was, therefore, not so much less miscegenation among the English but there remained the natural tendency so to denounce these unions as eventually to restrict the custom, as it is today, to the weaker types of both races, the offspring of whom in the case of slave mothers became a commodity in the commercial world.

There was extensive miscegenation in the English colonies, however, before the race as a majority could realize the apparent need for maintaining its integrity. With the development of the industries came the use of the white servants as well as the slaves. The status of the one differed from that of the other in that the former at the expiration of his term of service could become free whereas the latter was doomed to servitude for life. In the absence of social distinctions between these two cla.s.ses of laborers there arose considerable intermingling growing out of a community of interests. In the colonies in which the laborers were largely of one cla.s.s or the other not so much of this admixture was feared, but in the plantations having a considerable sprinkling of the two miscegenation usually ensued.

The following, therefore, was enacted in Maryland in 1661 as a response to the question of the council to the lower house as to what it intended should become of such free women of the English or other Christian nations as married Negroes or other slaves.[451] The preamble reads: "And forasmuch as divers freeborn _English_ women, forgetful of their free condition, and to the disgrace of our nation, do intermarry with negro slaves,[452] by which also divers suits may arise, touching the issue of such women, and a great damage doth befall the master of such negroes, for preservation whereof for deterring such free-born women from such shameful matches, _be it enacted_: That whatsoever free-born woman shall intermarry with any slave, from and after the last day of the present a.s.sembly, shall serve the master of such slave during the life of her husband; and that all the issues of such free-born women, so married, shall be slaves as their fathers were." "And be it further enacted: That all the issues of _English_, or other free-born women, that have already married negroes, shall serve the master of their parents, till they be thirty years of age and no longer."[453]

According to A. J. Calhoun, however, all planters of Maryland did not manifest so much ire because of this custom among indentured servants.

"Planters, said he, "sometimes married white women servants to Negroes in order to transform the Negroes and their offspring into slaves.[454] This was in violation of the ancient unwritten law that the children of a free woman, the father being a slave, follow the status of their mother and are free. The custom gave rise to an interesting case. "Irish Nell," one of the servants brought to Maryland by Lord Baltimore, was sold by him to a planter when he returned to England. Following the custom of other masters who held white women as servants, he soon married her to a Negro named Butler to produce slaves. Upon hearing this, Baltimore used his influence to have the law repealed but the abrogation of it was construed by the Court of Appeals not to have any effect on the status of her offspring almost a century later when William and Mary Butler sued for their freedom on the ground that they descended from this white woman. The Provincial Court had granted them freedom but in this decision the Court of Appeals reversed the lower tribunal on the ground that "Irish Nell" was a slave before the measure repealing the act had been pa.s.sed. This case came up again 1787 when Mary, the daughter of William and Mary Butler, pet.i.tioned the State for freedom. Both tribunals then decided to grant this pet.i.tion.[455]

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 l.u.s.tful 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.[456]

The effect of this law was merely to prevent masters from prost.i.tuting white women to an economic purpose. It did not prevent the miscegenation of the two races. McCormac says: "Mingling of the races in Maryland continued during the eighteenth century, in spite of all laws against it. Preventing marriages of white servants with slaves only led to a greater social evil, which caused a reaction of public sentiment against the servant. Masters and society in general were burdened with the care of illegitimate mulatto children, and it became necessary to frame laws compelling the guilty parties to reimburse the masters for the maintenance of these unfortunate waifs."[457] To remedy this laws were pa.s.sed in 1715 and 1717 to reduce to the status of a servant for seven years any white man or white woman who cohabited with any Negro, free or slave. Their children were made servants for thirty-one years, a black thus concerned was reduced to slavery for life and the maintenance of the b.a.s.t.a.r.d children of women servants was made inc.u.mbent upon masters. If the father of an illegitimate child could be discovered, he would have to support his offspring. If not this duty fell upon the mother who had to discharge it by servitude or otherwise.[458]

As what had been done to prevent the admixture was not sufficient, the Maryland General a.s.sembly took the following action in 1728:

"Whereas by the act of a.s.sembly relating to servants and slaves, there is no provision made for the punishment of free mulatto women, having b.a.s.t.a.r.d children by negroes and other slaves, nor is there any provision made in the said act for the punishment of free negro women, having b.a.s.t.a.r.d children by white men; and forasmuch as such copulations are as unnatural and inordinate as between white women and negro men, or other slaves.

"_Be it enacted_, That from and after the end of this present session of a.s.sembly, that all such free mulatto women, having b.a.s.t.a.r.d children, either within or after the time of their service, (_and their issue_,) shall be subject to the same penalties that white women and their issue are, for having mulatto b.a.s.t.a.r.ds, by the act, ent.i.tled, An act relating to servants and slaves.

"_And be it further enacted, by the authority aforesaid, by and with the advice and consent aforesaid_, that from and after the end of this present session of a.s.sembly, that all free negro women, having b.a.s.t.a.r.d children by white men, (_and their issue_,) shall be subject to the same penalties that white women are, by the act aforesaid, for having b.a.s.t.a.r.ds by negro men."[459]

Virginia which faced the same problem did not lag far behind Maryland.

In 1630 the Governor and Council in Court ordered Hugh Davis to be soundly whipped before an a.s.sembly of Negroes and others for abusing himself to the dishonor of G.o.d and shame of a Christian by defiling his body in lying with a Negro, which he was to acknowledge next Sabbath day. In 1662 the colony imposed double fines for fornication with a Negro, but did not restrict intermarriage until 1691.[460] The words of the preamble give the reasons for this action. It says:

"And for the prevention of that abominable mixture and spurious issue which hereafter may increase in this dominion, as well by negroes, mulattoes, and Indians intermarrying with English, or other white women, as by their unlawful accompanying with one another, _Be it enacted by the authoritie aforesaid, and it is hereby enacted_, That for the time to come, whatsoever English or other white man or woman being free shall intermarry with a negro, mulatto, or Indian man or woman bond or free shall within three months after such marriage be banished and removed from this dominion forever, and that the justices of each respective countie within this dominion make it their perticular care, that this act be put in effectuall execution."

If any free English woman should have a b.a.s.t.a.r.d child by any Negro or mulatto, she should pay the sum of fifteen pounds sterling, within one month after such b.a.s.t.a.r.d child should be born, to the church wardens of the parish where she should be delivered of such child, and in default of such payment she should be taken into the possession of the said church wardens and disposed of for five years, and such b.a.s.t.a.r.d child should be bound out as a servant by the church wardens until he or she should attain the age of thirty years, and in case such English woman that should have such b.a.s.t.a.r.d child be a servant, she should be sold by the church wardens (after her time is expired that she ought by law to serve her master) for five years, and the money she should be sold for divided as before appointed, and the child should serve as aforesaid.[461]

It was further provided in 1753 that if any woman servant should have a b.a.s.t.a.r.d child by a Negro or mulatto, over and above the year's service due to her master or owner, she should immediately upon the expiration of her time, to her then present master, or owner, pay down to the church wardens of the parish wherein such child should be born for the use of the said parish, fifteen pounds current money of Virginia, or be sold for five years to the use aforesaid; and if a free Christian white woman should have such b.a.s.t.a.r.d child by a Negro, or mulatto, for every such offence, she should within one month after her delivery of such b.a.s.t.a.r.d child, pay to the church wardens for the time being, of the parish wherein such child should be born, for the use of the said parish, fifteen pounds current money of Virginia, or be by them sold for five years to the use aforesaid; and in both the said cases, the church wardens should bind the said child to be a servant until it should be of thirty-one years of age.

And for a further prevention of that "abominable mixture, and the spurious issue, which may hereafter increase in this his majesty's colony and dominion as well by English, and other white men and women, intermarrying with Negroes or mulattoes, as by their unlawful coition with them" it was enacted that whatsoever English, or other white man or woman, being free, should intermarry with a Negro, or mulatto man or woman bond or free, should by judgment of the county court, be committed to prison and there remain during the s.p.a.ce of six months, without bail or main-prize, and should forfeit and pay ten pounds current money of Virginia, to the use of the parish as aforesaid. It was further enacted that no minister of the Church of England, or other minister or person whatsoever, within that colony and dominion, should thereafter presume to marry a white man with a Negro, or mulatto woman, or to marry a white woman with a Negro or mulatto man, upon pain of forfeiting and paying for every such marriage, the sum of ten thousand pounds of tobacco.[462]

It developed later that these laws did not meet all requirements, for there were in subsequent years so many illegitimate children born of such mothers that they became a public charge.[463] Those of Negro blood were bound out by law. According to Russell, "In 1727 it was ordered that David James a free negro boy, be bound to Mr. James Isdel 'who is to teach him to read ye bible distinctly also ye trade of a gunsmith that he carry him to ye Clark's office & take Indenture to that purpose.' "By the Warwick County court it was 'ordered that Malacai, a mulatto boy, son of mulatto Betty be, by the Church Wardens of this Parish bound to Thomas Hobday to learn the art of a planter according to law.' By order of the Norfolk County court, about 1770, a free negro was bound out 'to learn the trade of a tanner.'"[464]

In making more stringent regulations for servants and slaves, North Carolina provided in 1715 that if a white servant woman had a child by a Negro, mulatto or Indian, she must serve her master two years extra and should pay to the Church wardens immediately on the expiration of that time six pounds for the use of the parish or be sold four years for the use aforesaid.[465] A clergyman found guilty of officiating at such a marriage should be fined fifty pounds. This law, according to Ba.s.sett, did not succeed in preventing such unions. Two ministers were indicted within two years for performing such a marriage ceremony. "In one case the suit was dropped, in the other case the clergyman went before the Chief Justice and confessed as it seems of his own accord.... In 1727 a white woman was indicted in the General Court because she had left her husband and was cohabiting with a negro slave.... So far as general looseness was concerned this law of 1715 had no force. Brickell, who was a physician, says that white men of the colony suffered a great deal from a malignant kind of venereal disease which they took from the slaves."[466]

By the law of 1741 therefore the colony endeavored to prevent what the General a.s.sembly called "that abominable mixture and spurious issue, which hereafter may increase in this government, by white men and women intermarrying with Indians, Negroes, mustees, or mulattoes." It was enacted that if any man or woman, being free, should intermarry with an Indian, Negro, mustee or mulatto man or woman, or any person of mixed blood, to the third generation, bond or free, he should, by judgment of the county court forfeit and pay the sum of fifty pounds, proclamation money, to the use of the parish.[467] It was also provided that if any white servant woman should during the time of her servitude, be delivered of a child, begotten by any Negro, mulatto or Indian, such servant, over and above the time she was by this act to serve her master or owner for such offence, should be sold by the Church wardens of the parish, for two years, after the time by indenture or otherwise had expired.[468]

The miscegenation of the whites and blacks extended so widely that it became a matter of concern to the colonies farther north where the Negro population was not considerable. Seeking also to prevent this "spurious mixt issue" Ma.s.sachusetts enacted in 1705 that a Negro or mulatto man committing fornication with an "English woman, or a woman of any other Christian nation," should be sold out of the province."

"An English man, or man of any other Christian nation committing fornication with a Negro or mulatto woman," should be whipped, and the woman sold out of the province. None of her Majesty's English or Scottish subjects, nor of any other Christian nation within that province should contract matrimony with any Negro or mulatto, under a penalty imposed on the person joining them in marriage. No master should unreasonably deny marriage to his Negro with one of the same nation; any law, usage or custom to the contrary notwithstanding.[469]

There was much social contact between the white servants and the Negroes in Pennsylvania, where the number of the latter greatly increased during the first quarter of the nineteenth century. Turner says a white servant was indicted for this offence in Suss.e.x County in 1677 and a tract of land there bore the name of "Mulatto Hall."[470]

According to the same writer Chester County seemed to have a large number of these cases and laid down the principle that such admixture should be prohibited,

"For that hee," referring to a white man, "Contrary to his Masters Consent hath ... got wth child a certaine molato wooman Called Swart anna." "David Lewis Constable of Haverford Returned a Negro man of his And a white woman for having a b.a.s.t.a.r.d Childe ... the Negroe said she Intised him and promised him to marry him: she being examined, Confest the same: the Court ordered that she shall receive Twenty one lashes on her bare Backe ... and the Court ordered the negroe never more to meddle with any white woman more uppon paine of his life."[471]

Advertising for Richard Molson in Philadelphia in 1720, his master said, "He is in company with a white woman named Mary, who is supposed now goes for his wife"; "and a white man named Garrett Choise, and Jane his wife, which said white people are servants to some neighbors of the said Richard Tilghman."[472] In 1722 a woman was punished for abetting a clandestine marriage between a white woman and a Negro. In the _Pennsylvania Gazette_, June 1, 1749, appeared the notice of the departure of Isaac Cromwell, a mulatto, who ran away with an English servant woman named Anne Greene.[473]

The a.s.sembly, therefore, upon a pet.i.tion from inhabitants inveighing against this custom enacted a prohibitory law in 1725. This law provided that no minister, pastor or magistrate or other person whatsover who according to the laws of that province usually joined people in marriage should upon any pretence whatever join in marriage any Negro with any white person on the penalty of one hundred pounds.

And it was further enacted that if any white man or woman should cohabit or dwell with any Negro under pretense of being married, such white man or woman should be put out of service as above directed until they come to the age of thirty-one years; and if any free Negro man or woman should intermarry with a white man or woman, such Negro should become a slave during life to be sold by order of the justice of the quarter sessions of the respective county; and if any free Negro man or woman should commit fornication or adultery with any white man or woman, such Negro or Negroes should be sold as a servant for seven years and the white man or woman should be punished as the law directs in cases of adultery or fornication.[474]

This law seemed to have very little effect on the miscegenation of the races in certain parts. In Chester County, according to the records of 1780, mulattoes const.i.tuted one fifth of the Negro population.[475]

Furthermore, that very year when the State of Pennsylvania had grown sufficiently liberal to provide for gradual emanc.i.p.ation the law against the mingling of the races was repealed. Mixed marriages thereafter became common as the white and the blacks in the light of the American Revolution realized liberty in its full meaning. Thomas Branagan said:

"There are many, very many blacks who ... begin to feel themselves consequential, ... will not be satisfied unless they get white women for wives, and are likewise exceedingly impertinent to white people in low circ.u.mstances.... I solemnly swear, I have seen more white women married to, and deluded through the arts of seduction by negroes in one year in Philadelphia, than for eight years I was visiting (West Indies and the Southern States). I know a black man who seduced a young white girl ... who soon after married him, and died with a broken heart. On her death he said that he would not disgrace himself to have a negro wife and acted accordingly, for he soon after married a white woman. ... There are perhaps hundreds of white women thus fascinated by black men in this city, and there are thousands of black children by them at present."[476]

A reaction thereafter set in against this custom during the first decade of the nineteenth century, when fugitives in the rough were rus.h.i.+ng to that State, and culminated in an actual campaign against it by 1820. That year a pet.i.tion from Greene County said that many Negroes had settled in Pennsylvania and had been able to seduce into marriage "the minor children of the white inhabitants."[477] This county, therefore, asked that these marriages be made an offence against the laws of the State. Such a marriage was the cause of a riot in Columbia in 1834 and in 1838 the members of the Const.i.tutional Convention engaged in a heated discussion of the custom.[478]

Pet.i.tions were frequently sent to the legislature asking that this admixture be penalized by law, but no such action was ever taken.

Relying upon public opinion, however, the advocates of racial integrity practically succeeded. Marriages of whites and blacks eventually became so odious that they led to disturbances as in the case of the riot of 1849, one of the causes of which was that a white man was living with a Negro wife.[479] This was almost ineffective, however, in the prevention of race admixture. Clandestine intermingling went on and tended to increase in enormous proportions.

The conclusive proof of this is that in 1860 mulattoes const.i.tuted one third of the Negro population of Pennsylvania.