Hi again Craig:

The "story," isn't built on census data; the census data was just what
caught my attention.  It was the seed, you might say. The laws, such as
they were in the south,  were anti-miscegenation and during certain periods
(post Nat-Turner uprising, for example,) were more reactionary and thus
strict  than others ( pre-Nat Turner things were more relaxed) but in VA,
in particular, it took a Supreme court case,  *Loving vs. VA*. that
ultimately challenged anti-miscegenation laws, but that had to wait until
the late 1960s. But the legal trajectory of these laws is already well
documented; what seems little researched is how these folks managed in the
face of such oppression and the consequences there of.  I may need to look
at, not the laws, but case files of folks prosecuted for flouting the laws.
Also, what preliminary research I've done in this family; the mulatto
female does not show up in  the Fauquier County  Free Negro Registry
(compliance was an issue, I know, but the registry was a result of post Nat
Turner uprising sentiment,)  and neither does the family surname turn up in
any Chancery case files -- anywhere in VA. Thus far, the only place I've
found  Alethea Preston and her (kin?)  is in the census. What I know of
Alethea and her heirs is more substantive -- I even have pictures of her
daughter Margaret "Molly" Pinn Colvin and Catherine "Katy" Bell Colvin,
mulattoes one of whom, Katy,  married into the long line of black,
evangelical Baptist preachers, the Tapscotts -- currently in their 6th
generation of that profession. But the genealogical data doesn't answer the
primary questions.


A.

On Thu, May 31, 2012 at 5:58 PM, Craig Kilby <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

> Alex,
>
> It might prove useful to separate antebellum laws versus Reconstruction
> laws versus Post Re-construction laws. This seems to be a complicated
> family situation worthy of in-depth study of the laws on the books at any
> particular time. I don't think you can build a story based solely on census
> data.
>
> Craig
> On May 31, 2012, at 2:25 PM, Alexander Colvin wrote:
>
> > Greetings:
> >
> > I'm working on a paper which explores how miscegenation was able to occur
> > in antebellum / Reconstruction south in a period when strict laws
>  forbade
> > it and anti-miscegenation sentiment was keenly felt -- particularly in
> VA.
> > How were these couples able to circumvent the law and how did these
> actions
> > impact their lives? Were they courageous or stupid?  Did they suffer
> > consequently? If so, how?  For example, in one case, I have found
> incidents
> > in the census 1850-1870 where an enumerated white men is engaging in what
> > appears to be extralegal marriages with a mulatto woman. In that case,
> > female starts out  in the home of what I believe is her family (a white
> > father, possibly) plus an "invalid" white male with another surname
> > along young mulatto children with her surname; by the 1870s the same
> > mulatto female now has the surname of the invalid white male as do many
> of
> > the children from the 1850 tally. I am reviewing the literature on the
> > subject of which there is a pronounced scarcity. Some authors whose work
> > I've looked at/ am looking at: Bodenhorn, Howard; Mills, Gary; Bloch,
> J.M.;
> > Jack, Luther P., Zackodnick, Teresa;  Bodenhorn/Ruebeck, and the thesis
> of
> > Havey Marcus.  I am hungry for additional sources as this aspect of U.S.
> > antebellum / Reconstruction race relations appears  quite fascinating but
> > has received little scholarship.
> >
> > Respectfully,
> >
> > Alex Colvin
> > [log in to unmask]
> > [log in to unmask]
>
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