YG wrote:
  ***I'm sure that many of us have the stray family tale of the
Cherokee princess marrying into the family or the captured woman who
escaped to tell the tale.  I'm not disparaging the stories, just
trying to inject some reality, so that I can begin the process of
researching a newly discovered ancestor.  YG  ***

Hi, YG.  Your questions bristle with and beg other questions.  I have
responded as best I can without writing another book........ I have
interlineated with responses:
I know of very few families with roots in west NC, east TN, north GA
or north AL that do NOT have such stories.  The reason is simple; men
of the 16th, 17th and 18th Centuries quite usually came to the western
limits of civilization without women.  Indian women were readily
available, were easily purchased from their fathers, and were known
for their amorous talents.  Thus, many became the live-ins of those
men.  While we say they "married", more often than not the
relationships were described in much less dignified terms by the
contemporaries of those settlers.

    *** 1st:   When were the anti-miscegenation laws passed? Were they
enforced
in the 1700's even if they weren't on the books? ***

Miscegenation rules, whether from law or by the church, were in
existence here and there and enforced in varying degrees since the
Spanish settlements, even prior to the Jamestown colony.  Yet, it
often was written that enforcement was inversely proportionate to the
number of miles from the sheriffs' offices or the parish glebes.

Enforced, as you likely mean it?   Generally YES, however one easily
could escape the rigors of the law and the admonishments or
banishments of the church or community simply by moving "west" beyond
the reaches of those powers.  Such people (with or without changing
their names) settled with others of their sort, often thereafter lived
happily as frontier settlers, and over a couple of generations melted
into the society around them and became invisible to us.  It is safe
to say that in 1800 whether or not you had enjoyed a ceremony and (or)
a license admitting of your union was almost never questioned.  We
were not burdened by the Victorian notions with which to a greater or
lesser degree all of us were born since 1850.

     ***2nd:   What were the legitimate grounds for divorce in the
1700's and
what court had jurisdiction to grant a divorce? in Virginia? ***

In theory, only desertion was acceptable as a reason for divorce in VA
and all other colonies.  That said, divorces by action of the county
courts and known as "a mensa et thoro" (from bed and board, see my
dictionary) were not uncommon where the differences were what later -
and now - might be categorized as "irreconcilable".  Mostly, refusal
in the wifely duties, including in the bed (we then had "duty sex"),
adultery by the wife, or cruelty by the man were the causes given
lip-service, though like now, most such conflicts involved the same
differences as today.

Then too, the power to grant what you would know as a "final divorce"
was reserved to the state or colonial legislatures, those divorces
having been brought about by what were known as "private acts".  Here,
perhaps more than any place else in that distant society, who you knew
and your capacity to pay competant lawyers to present your case were
the determinative factors.  It was written that the grounds for
divorce then were easy, but gaining a presentation of those to the
parties in govt. that could help was, at best, VERY difficult and
costly.  In short, not what you knew, but who, was almost conclusive
in such appeals for action.  We said we wanted NO divorces - "till
death us do part", etc.

     ***3rd:   If a wife was captured (by NAmer. tribe) and returned
to her
husband pregnant, was it the norm to divorce her? What grounds-
Adultery?
Abandonment? ***

Such a state of affairs was universally grounds for divorce, no matter
her inability to prevent such impregnation. HOWEVER, then as now,
folks knew in their conscience that a woman was powerless against
those who would kidnap her, and though legislatures readily granted
divorces to men who asked for such, more often than not those women
were readmitted into the folds of the families of their fathers.  So
too were those bastard children, albeit stigmatized forever and for a
couple generations afterwards.

The greatest deterrent for such women to re-enter society was the firm
belief that somehow a woman was forever changed by intercourse with
non-Caucasions.  It is noteworthy that even today there are those in
Appalachia (and within my acquaintance) who believe that once a woman
(or a mare or bitch) has borne young from a different race, there is a
distinct likelihood that such features as were then created may
re-appear in later births.  The anecdotes - baseless and silly as
those are - reveal almost a belief that spermatazoa, once deposited
there, lurked in a woman and might appear at any future time.

Hope this helps.  Paul

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