John wrote: >My understanding is that the word "mulatto" is first mentioned in [Anglo] "American" literature in Hening's Statutes in 1705 - John, in Virginia, it earlier appears in an act of 1662: "Whereas some doubts have arrisen whether children got by any Englishman upon a negro woman should be slave or free. Be it therefore enacted and declared by this present grand assembly, that all children borne in this country shall be held bond or free only according to the condition of the mother." (2 LAWS OF VA. 170, Act XII, enacted 1662 (Hening 1823). Higginbotham and Kopytoff also report an earlier usage that I have not personally consulted for this issue. I'll quote them here: p. 31, n44 "... we find it [the term] used as early as March 12, 1655, when the record refers to a 'Mulatto held to be a slave and appeal taken.' MINUTES OF THE COUNCIL AND GENERAL COURT OF COLONIAL VIRGINIA 504 (H.R. McIlwaine 1st ed. 1924)." Historian Joel Williamson, in _New People: Miscegenation and Mulattoes in the United States_ (New York: Free Press/Collier Macmillan, 1980), 7-8, pushes that first recorded usage in Virginia back yet another decade: "In 1640 a similar case brought a somewhat different punishment from the Virginia court. 'Whereas Robert Sweat hath begotten with child a negro woman belonging unto Lieutenant Sheppard,' Sweat was to do public penance at James City Church during service on the following Sabbath and the woman was to be 'whipt at the whipping post.' Four years later [i.e., 1644] the court first inserted the term 'mulatto' in its formal record when it ruled that 'A Mulatto named Manuel' was to be a slave." [For this first usage, Williamson cites the classic abstracts by Helen T. Catterall, "_Judicial Cases Concerning American Slavery,_ 5 vols. (Washington, D.C.: Carnegie Institute of Washington, 1926-37), 1:77-78."] Elizabeth ---------------------------------------------------------- Elizabeth Shown Mills, CG, CGL, FASG The Evidence Series To subscribe, change options, or unsubscribe, please see the instructions at http://listlva.lib.va.us/archives/va-roots.html