Legal History of the Color Line: The Rise and Triumph of the One-Drop RuleOne-Third of White Americans Have Recent Black Admixture Every Year, 35,000 Black-Born Youngsters Redefine Themselves as White Genealogists were the first to learn that America's color line leaks. Black researchers often find White ancestry. White genealogists routinely uncover Black ancestry. Molecular anthropologists now confirm Afro-European mixing in our DNA. The plain fact is that few Americans can truly say that they are genetically unmixed. Yet liberals and conservatives alike agree that so-called Whites and Blacks are distinct political races. When did ideology triumph over reality? How did America paint itself into such a strange corner? Americans changed their concept of race many times. Eston Hemings, Jefferson's son, was socially accepted as a White Virginian because he looked European. Biracial planters in antebellum South Carolina assimilated into White society because they were rich. Intermarried couples were acquitted despite the laws because some courts ruled that anyone one with less than one-fourth African ancestry was White, while others ruled that Italians were Colored. Dozens of nineteenth-century American families struggled to come to grips with notions of racial identity as the color line shifted and hardened into its present form. This 542-page book tells their stories in the light of genetic admixture studies and in the records of every appealed court case since 1780 that decided which side of the color line someone was on. Its index lists dozens of 19th-century surnames. It shows that: The color line was invented in 1691 to prevent servile insurrection. The one-drop rule was invented in the North during the Nat Turner panic. It was resisted by LouisianaCreoles, Florida Hispanics, and the maroon (triracial) communities of the Southeast. It triumphed during Jim Crow as a means of keeping Whites in line by banishing to Blackness any White family who dared to establish friendly relations with a Black family. Frank W. Sweet was accepted to Ph.D. candidacy in history at the University of Florida in 2003 and has completed all but his dissertation defense. He earned an M.A. in History from American Military University in 2001. He is the author of eleven historical booklets and numerous published historical essays. He was a member of the editorial board of the magazine Interracial Voice, is a regular lecturer and panelist at historical and genealogical conferences, and moderates an online discussion group on the history of U.S. racialism. Legal History of the Color Line, ISBN 0-939479-23-0, is available for $36.95 from Ingram, Baker & Taylor, www.amazon.com, www.barnesandnoble.com, and can be ordered at any bookstore. |
From inside the book
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... email: sales@backintyme.com Printed in the United States of America First Printing, July 2005 ISBN: 0-939479-23-0 Library of Congress Control Number: 2005905436 Dedicated to those courageous souls who reject the madness, check.
... email: sales@backintyme.com Printed in the United States of America First Printing, July 2005 ISBN: 0-939479-23-0 Library of Congress Control Number: 2005905436 Dedicated to those courageous souls who reject the madness, check.
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... United States 15 Ancestry-Informative Markers 16 Admixture Scatter Diagrams 23 Genetic Admixture is not the Same Thing as Appearance .... 30 Chapter 3. The Heredity of "Racial" Traits 37 Three -to-Six Co-Dominant Skin Tone Genes 39 ...
... United States 15 Ancestry-Informative Markers 16 Admixture Scatter Diagrams 23 Genetic Admixture is not the Same Thing as Appearance .... 30 Chapter 3. The Heredity of "Racial" Traits 37 Three -to-Six Co-Dominant Skin Tone Genes 39 ...
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... United States. He served as the national chair of a professional association of database engineers, published nearly one hundred articles in the computer trade press, presented over a dozen papers at national conferences, and published ...
... United States. He served as the national chair of a professional association of database engineers, published nearly one hundred articles in the computer trade press, presented over a dozen papers at national conferences, and published ...
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... United States as a whole, even as it sacrifices the enclave group. They suggest that America's ethnic diversity is precisely what makes the nation uniquely resilient and creative. They suggest that American diversity has resulted from ...
... United States as a whole, even as it sacrifices the enclave group. They suggest that America's ethnic diversity is precisely what makes the nation uniquely resilient and creative. They suggest that American diversity has resulted from ...
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... United States is unique in having a bimodal admixture distribution. Two genetically different populations live in the United States. One population, self-identified as "White," is of overwhelmingly European descent with only zero to ...
... United States is unique in having a bimodal admixture distribution. Two genetically different populations live in the United States. One population, self-identified as "White," is of overwhelmingly European descent with only zero to ...
Contents
1 | |
13 | |
37 | |
THE PERCEPTION OF RACIAL TRAITS | 55 |
THE RATE OF BLACKTOWHITE PASSING | 71 |
THE ENDOGAMOUS COLOR LINE | 89 |
1691 | 117 |
WHY DID VIRGINIAS RULERS INVENT A COLOR | 133 |
THE ONEDROP RULE | 263 |
THE INVENTION OF THE ONEDROP RULE IN | 299 |
WHY DID NORTHERNERS INVENT A ONEDROP | 325 |
THE ANTEBELLUM SOUTH REJECTS THE ONE | 347 |
THE ONEDROP RULE IN THE POSTBELLUM | 363 |
THE ONEDROP RULE ARRIVES IN | 377 |
JIM CROW TRIUMPH OF THE ONEDROP RULE403 | 403 |
WHY DID ONEDROP BECOME NATIONWIDE | 439 |
Common terms and phrases
accepted African admixture African ancestry African genetic admixture African-American African-American ethnicity Afro-European Afro-European Genetic Admixture Alabama alleles antebellum became biracial Black ancestry Black endogamous group Black side Black Yankee Black-to-White blood fraction blood-fraction Catterall census century Chapter Civil colonial Colored Creoles County culture decades descendants despite dogamous drop rule endogamous color line endogamous group membership enforced European European-looking exogamy Foner free Blacks genes Hispanic History Human Genetics hypodescent Ibid Identity intermarriage interracial invented invisible Blackness James Jim Crow Journal Justice laborers look Louisiana lower South Lumbee markers marriage married Melungeons Miscegenation mous group Mulatto Nat Turner negro blood North one-drop rule parents passing percent African person physical appearance population Race racial record rule of invisible shows skin tone slave Slavery social society South Carolina Spanish Florida status tion topic traits U.S. Black United University upper South Virginia White Americans White endogamous group York