Dear List,
I've just had a similar issue come up in a different context.
1. The rule followed throughout the slave-holding states was that slavery status followed the race of the mother. A number of the most famous of the fugitive slaves (Frederick Douglass, William Wells Brown, etc.) were the children of slave mothers and white fathers. Any freedom granted to such a mixed race child came as a matter of grace from its owner; in common with other slaves it had no right whatever to determine its own fate. Technically, the children of an African-american father and a white mother, should have been born free. However, that event seems to have been so rare (or so severely repressed) as to have left little record.
2. The term "mulatto" came from a Spanish word meaning mule, the subtext being that white and black were to be considered as different as horses and mules, so that their offspring would be sterile. The theory was disproven nearly daily, but the unfortunate label stuck. Now that we know that all currently identified human populations came out of Africa the "theory" behind the label is simply laughable. In keeping with it's irrational beginnings, there likely were times when bi-racial children with white and American Indian parents might well have been called mulatto. But it and it's related terms; "quadroon,"octoroon,etc." were just examples of the "hypoethnicity" that continuously denied that half, or three-quarters, seven-eighths or more of a child's ancestry was white. All of this helps explain why the seemingly mulatto has become so offensive and less terms like bi-racial or multi-racial have become the general rule for what has always been, in fact, a middle race, blending the inheritance of both father and mother.
3. The observation that the 1870 census can give no indication as to slavery status prior to emancipation is exactly right. The community of "free persons of color" that had grown to considerable size in a number of cities prior to the Civil War, was, at least officially, submerged in the far larger class of all free black persons in 1870. However an obsession with color was to continue in that census and many that followed. The instructions given to those charged with taking the 1870 census included this: " Color. -- It must not be assumed that, where nothing is written in this column, "White" is to be understood. The column is always to be filled. Be particularly careful in reporting the class Mulatto. The word is here generic, and includes quadroons, octoroons, and all persons having any perceptible trace of African blood. Important scientific results depend upon the correct determination of this class in Schedules 1 ["Inhabitants"] and 2 ["Mortality"]." (Ninth Census, United States, 1870, Instructions to Assistant Marshalls, p. 10.) The instructions, of course, had far more to do with the racial prejudice that immediately supplanted outright slavery than with any "scientific" effort. Those same instructions were repeated for the 1880 census, but the use of sub-categories reached its apogee in the Instructions for the "lost" [because virtually all of the original results were burned up] 1890 census:
Write white, black, mulatto, quadroon, octoroon, Chinese, Japanese, or Indian according to the color or race of the persons enumerated. Be particularly careful to distinguish between blacks, mulattoes, quadroons and octoroons. The word "black" should be used to describe those persons who have from three-fourths or more black blood; "mulatto," those persons who have from three-eights to five-eights black blood; "quadroon," those persons who have one-fourth black blood; and "octoroon," those persons who have one-eighth or any trace of black blood.
Eleventh Census of the United States, "Instructions to Enumerators," Under the Provisions of the Act of Congress Approved March 1, 1889, p.23. Emphasis added.
By 1890 the federal bureaucracy appeared committed to providing the statistics necessary to support the "Jim Crow" and anti-miscegenation laws centered in, but not confined to, the South and the racial covenants that increasingly controlled land development throughout the country.
The "mulatto" category and its various subcategories disappeared for the 1900 census, you were Black or White. But Black included anyone "of negro descent" leaving the census takers free to lump anyone with any African-American ancestry as Black. (Twelfth Census of the United States, 1900, Instructions to Enumerators, p. 29.). Mulatto reappeared in 1910 (and again in 1920) as a catch-all specifically intended to capture even the smallest proportion of "negro blood."
108. Column 6. Color or race.--Write "W" for white; "B" for black; "Mu" for mulatto; "Ch" for Chinese; "Jp" for Japanese; "In" for Indian. For all other persons not falling within one of these classes, write "Ot" (for other). and write on the left-hand margin of the schedule the race of the person so indicated.
109. For census purposes, the term "black" (B) includes all persons who are evidently full-blooded negroes, while the term "mulatto" (Mu) includes all other persons having some proportion or perceptible trace of negro blood."
Thirteenth Census of the United States, April 15, 1910, Instructions to Enumerators, p. 28. Emphasis added.
In 1930 the instructions did away with the formal mulatto category and simultaneously created the clearest of paths for applying all race related laws and covenants to those with even the remotest of African-American ancestry:
151. Negroes.--A person of mixed white and Negro blood should be returned as a Negro no matter how small the percentage of Negro blood. Both black and mulatto persons are to be returned as Negroes, without distinction. ...
Fifteenth Census (1930), Instructions to Enumerators, p.26. Emphasis added.
On the brink of the Second World War, with the "New Deal" firmly in place, the 1940 census continued to officially support the same "any drop" definition that had been continuously enforced since slavery. It now seemed to stop at the first generation by stating that "457. Mixed Races.--Any mixture of white and nonwhite should be reported according to the nonwhite parent." But it was a distinction without a difference for those with any African-American ancestry, by repeating the 1930 definition of a "non-white" Negro:
455. Negroes.--A person of mixed white and Negro blood should be returned as a Negro, no matter how small the percentage of Negro blood. ...
Sixteenth Census, Instructions to Enumerators, p. 43. Emphasis added.
This last section turned out a bit long, but it seems important to note just how quickly and thoroughly the United States reemployed words like "mulatto" in moving from slavery to sanctioned prejudice after the Civil War. To this day,
it remains difficult for a bi-racial individual to find a category that does anything other than suppress his or her actual status by requiring a choice between Black and White on a the great majority of official and quasi-official forms.
Jack Fallin
Walnut Creek, CA
> There are 3 messages totaling 93 lines in this issue.
>
> Topics of the day:
>
> 1. status of children born of slave mothers in 1858 (3)
>
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> Date: Tue, 29 May 2012 12:43:45 -0700
> From: "R. C. Solomon" <[log in to unmask]>
> Subject: status of children born of slave mothers in 1858
>
> I always thought that a child of a slave belonged to the slave owner - even if the child was father by a white man other than the owner. In researching my great great grandmother Easter Nelson, I found that her first child, my great grandmother Edmonia was fathered by a relative of her owner's wife - Lewis Dulin. I know amything is possible - but can it be that a child fathered by a white man in 1858 would be raised as a free child by relatives of the mother? I have found a census record for a child named Edmonia Nelson born in 1858 living with free mulatto Nelsons in the same county in 1870. Of course I have no evidence that this Edmonia Nelson is the same Edmonia that Easter Nelson bore, but is it possible?
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> ------------------------------
>
> Date: Tue, 29 May 2012 15:57:23 -0400
> From: "Carole D. Bryant" <[log in to unmask]>
> Subject: Re: status of children born of slave mothers in 1858
>
> can't "free mulatto" mean Indian ? or white-Indian mix ?
>
>
> In a message dated 5/29/2012 3:55:51 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time,
> [log in to unmask] writes:
>
> I always thought that a child of a slave belonged to the slave owner -
> even if the child was father by a white man other than the owner. In
> researching my great great grandmother Easter Nelson, I found that her first
> child, my great grandmother Edmonia was fathered by a relative of her owner's
> wife - Lewis Dulin. I know amything is possible - but can it be that a child
> fathered by a white man in 1858 would be raised as a free child by
> relatives of the mother? I have found a census record for a child named Edmonia
> Nelson born in 1858 living with free mulatto Nelsons in the same county in
> 1870. Of course I have no evidence that this Edmonia Nelson is the same
> Edmonia that Easter Nelson bore, but is it possible?
>
> To subscribe, change options, or unsubscribe, please see the instructions
> at
> http://listlva.lib.va.us/archives/va-roots.html
>
> To subscribe, change options, or unsubscribe, please see the instructions at
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> ------------------------------
>
> Date: Tue, 29 May 2012 16:07:13 -0400
> From: Elaine McHale <[log in to unmask]>
> Subject: Re: status of children born of slave mothers in 1858
>
> In 1870, everyone was free. It would not surprise me at all to find a
> former female slave's child living with her mother's family.
>
> --
> Elaine McHale
> Librarian
> Fairfax County (VA) Public Library
>
>
> On 5/29/12, R. C. Solomon <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>> I always thought that a child of a slave belonged to the slave owner - even
>> if the child was father by a white man other than the owner. In researching
>> my great great grandmother Easter Nelson, I found that her first child, my
>> great grandmother Edmonia was fathered by a relative of her owner's wife -
>> Lewis Dulin. I know amything is possible - but can it be that a child
>> fathered by a white man in 1858 would be raised as a free child by relatives
>> of the mother? I have found a census record for a child named Edmonia Nelson
>> born in 1858 living with free mulatto Nelsons in the same county in 1870. Of
>> course I have no evidence that this Edmonia Nelson is the same Edmonia that
>> Easter Nelson bore, but is it possible?
>>
>> To subscribe, change options, or unsubscribe, please see the instructions
>> at
>> http://listlva.lib.va.us/archives/va-roots.html
>>
>
> To subscribe, change options, or unsubscribe, please see the instructions at
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> ------------------------------
>
> End of VA-ROOTS Digest - 27 May 2012 to 29 May 2012 (#2012-75)
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