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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Page ii
... Invented ................... The Transition Period ..........................................................120 The ... INVENT A COLOR LINE? ...................................................................................133 It was a ...
... Invented ................... The Transition Period ..........................................................120 The ... INVENT A COLOR LINE? ...................................................................................133 It was a ...
Page iii
... ................................. 315 CHAPTER 16. WHY DID NORTHERNERS INVENT A ONE-DROP RULE?...................................................................................325 A Watershed Event in Three Threads ...
... ................................. 315 CHAPTER 16. WHY DID NORTHERNERS INVENT A ONE-DROP RULE?...................................................................................325 A Watershed Event in Three Threads ...
Page 2
... invented parentage when he was actually born into a light - skinned African - American family ... - Andrew Sar- ris , New York Observer • Anthony Hopkins is a bewildering choice to play a black man in " The Human Stain . " Even a very ...
... invented parentage when he was actually born into a light - skinned African - American family ... - Andrew Sar- ris , New York Observer • Anthony Hopkins is a bewildering choice to play a black man in " The Human Stain . " Even a very ...
Page 4
... invented in the nineteenth century to enhance immi- grants ' political clout . The process is visible today in the Anglo - American- invented label " Hispanic , " which covers both Puerto Ricans and Chicanos , despite their having ...
... invented in the nineteenth century to enhance immi- grants ' political clout . The process is visible today in the Anglo - American- invented label " Hispanic , " which covers both Puerto Ricans and Chicanos , despite their having ...
Page 10
... invented in the late seventeenth - century Chesapeake to deter servile insur- rection , it gradually spread throughout the North and upper South . It reinforced the aggressive ethnic voting blocs of the Jacksonian urban North . It may ...
... invented in the late seventeenth - century Chesapeake to deter servile insur- rection , it gradually spread throughout the North and upper South . It reinforced the aggressive ethnic voting blocs of the Jacksonian urban North . It may ...
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