Whites Fathering Slave Children


Figure 1.-- "

In many cases slaves were the sons and daughters and other relatives of their masters. A child born to a slave was legally a slave even if the father was a freeman. The relationships varied as slave girls could be the object of the older children of their oners or brothers and cousins. Or non-family whites in contact with the slaves, such as an overseer could be involved. Often slaves were rented out and this provided other opportunities for non-family liasons. Thus slaves could be the children, grand, children or uncles of their slaves as well as unrelated whites. These relationships were most likely to occur with house hold slaves as they were most in contact with their masters and his family. And the house slaves were most likely to be light complexioned which to mny white men would have made them especially desirable. There are quite a number of accounts over time confirming that slave owners forced themselves upon slave women to varying degrees. A good example is a Presbeteryan minister who had both white and black congregations describes preaching to slaves, including individuals who had red hair and blue eyes. He insists that a third of his parisioners were just as white as he was. We suspect that he was probably exagerating, but his account confirms the existence practice of inter-racial relations and the existence of white slaves. [Aughey] Many but all of these accounts appeared during and after the War. While slave owners had virtuallu unlimited authority over his slave women. It would not be correct to say that there were no constraints. Some authors have attempted to play down the extent of inter-racial encounters. One author writes, "Some people seem to assume that, just because the law allowed owners to ravish slave girls, it had to be going on all over the place. This ignores the other forces (social, moral, religious, economic) that were involved. For instance, the seduction of the wife or daughter of a slave would undermine the plantation's discipline, which the planters worked hard to maintain. It would also undermine the planter's reputation both in the slave quarters, in his own home, and in the whole white community." These factors are all relevant, but so is human nature. And with white men in virtually absolute authority over black women, there was no way to prevent sexual encounters. I am not sure about actual statistics on this. One historiab reports that at the time of the Civil War there were about 0.4 million mullato children out of a slave population of about 3.9 million. [Franklin, p. 205.] Unfortunately the author does not cite the source of this data. That would be over 10 percent. While there are no obviously no statistics on this, the proof of what happened is clearly observable in physical appearance. Perhaps historian using the assessing the DNA evidence will be able to assess this.

Relationships

In many cases slaves were the sons and daughters and other relatives of their masters. A child born to a slave was legally a slave even if the father was a freeman. The relationships varied as slave girls could be the object of the older children of their oners or brothers and cousins. Or non-family whites in contact with the slaves, such as an overseer could be involved. Often slaves were rented out and this provided other opportunities for non-family liasons. Thus slaves could be the children, grand, children or uncles of their slaves as well as unrelated whites.

Force


Household Slaves

These relationships were most likely to occur with household slaves as they were most in contact with their masters and his family. And the house slaves were most likely to be light complexioned which to mny white men would have made them especially desirable.

Accounts

There are quite a number of accounts over time confirming that slave owners forced themselves upon slave women to varying degrees. Many but all of these accounts appeared during and after the War.

Reverend John H. Aughey (Mississippi)

A good example is a Presbeteryan minister who had both white and black congregations describes preaching to slaves, including individuals who had red hair and blue eyes. He insists that a third of his parisioners were just as white as he was. We suspect that he was probably exagerating, but his account confirms the existence practice of inter-racial relations and the existence of white slaves. [Aughey] Many but all of these accounts appeared during and after the War. Aughey writes, "In passing from the physical to the moral aspects of slavery, we are met by the great difficulty that a large portion of its daily working consists really of things such as should not be named among Christian men. It is difficult for us to realize the fact that men and women professing to be Christians should allow other men and women around them, whom they claim as their own property, to gratify their passions like brute beasts, the name of marriage representing a mere temporary relation. In the sea islands, Captain Hooper bears testimony to the fact that "many of the negro men have two or three wives, and children by each." The masters, it is distinctly stated, do not care whether the slave women are married or not, so long as they have children, nor have they, as a matter of fact, any scruple in breaking up such unions. The wife and children of Solomon Bradley, an "Uncle Tom" among the Port Royal negroes, were sold away some years ago, and he never expects to meet with them again. Between white and colored it is a principle of law throughout the slave states that there can be no legal union. But the number of mixed bloods shows that the white man's horror of "amalgamation" only starts into vitality within the church door. On Port Royal island already the "yellow niggers" form a considerable part of the population. "In almost all the schools," says Mr. Nordhoff, "You find children with blue eyes and light hair--oftenest yellow." Yet the description lists found at Hilton Head of the slaves shipped thence showed that the greater number of these were mixed bloods. Now as such shipments are almost universally for the dreaded South, it follows that the "patriarchs" and their overseers send their own offspring to a harsher slavery than that around themselves. And, owing partly to these shipments of the mixed breeds, partly to the more unbridled licentiousness of the whites themselves, it appears beyond a doubt that in the South and Southwest the proportion of "white" and "yellow niggers" is far higher than in the eastern states. Mr. Aughey speaks of preaching "to a large congregation of slaves, the third of whom were as white as himself," some with red hair and blue eyes. We remember that slave in Mississippi whose skin, when she was stripped for whipping, was as white as that of her master's wife. Mr. De Camp, the surgeon above referred to, speaks of having seen standing before him three negro recruits, in whom the "the most critical examination could not detect the slightest trace of negro blood." General MacDow says that in the district of Louisiana which he is writing from, there are very few slaves of unmixed negro blood. It is notorious that many planters have families of white and families of colored children, and perhaps give the latter to wait on the former. Remember always that the chastity of the slave has no legal protection. I cannot here enter into details; suffice it to say that the slave system has ere this enforced incest at the will of the master. But, without descending to such horrors, let any of my countrywomen picture to herself what must be the lot of women (often, as we have seen, as white as herself) placed from year's end to year's end under the absolute control of an overseer such as Mr. Aughey, and in fact almost all witnesses, describes--"cruel, brutal, licentious," always armed with the loaded whip, the bowie-knife, and the revolver--liable, too, at any time, without any recourse under heaven, to be sold or hired out into harlotry, as is practically done in every southern city --and then say whether the system in which such things are possible has the right to insult God and man any longer by its existence. [Aughey, pp. 242-45.]

Vincent Coyler (North Carolina)

The Civil War brought northerners south who knew nothing about slavery. Northern Armies struggled in the border states to invade the South. Federal Naval power provided the means to take coastal cities and forts. The Battle of New Bern (Marcg 14, 1862) helped strengthen Federal command over the North Carolina barrier islands which were useful in the embargo. New Bern was an important port and trading center. Major General Burnside choes Vincent Coyler to be superintendent of the poor. Coyler who had no previous experience in the South. He was shocked by the complexions he encountered. He thought of slaves as black Africans. He saw much more varied complexions and wrote, "The light color of many of the refugees is a marked peculiarity of the colored people of Newbern. I have had men and women apply for work who were so white that I could not believe they had a particle of negro blood in their veins."

Reverend Calvin Fairbank (Kentucky)

Reverend Calvin Fairbank (1816-98)was a deepluy committed abolitionist minister. He was born in Pike, New York and raised in a devoutely religious family. At a Methodist meeting he met two escaped slaves who described their experiences. The encounter had a profound impact. He traveled in Kenticky trying to help slaves escsape north. He describes a girl who was about to sold in a Lexington, Kentucky slave auction. He describes the girl as "one of the most beautiful and exquisite young girls one could expect to find in freedom or slavery ... being only one sixty-fourth African." Fairbank helped free several slaves in Kentucky, but was arrested twice and served 17 years under often brutal conditions. He was finall released during the Civil War (1864).

Dr. Alexander Milton Ross (Louisiana)

Dr. Alexander Milton Ross ( -1897) was a Canadian abolitionist who played a role in the Underground Railroad. . He traveled to the South to sureptiously help slaves escsape. wrote about a New Orleans slave auction he attended. He writes that many of the slaves being sold were "much whiter" than the white people who were buying them. Again we suspect that this is an exageration, but does indicate that there were many kigh-skinned slaves including some who were obstensibly white.

Others


Constraints

While slave owners had virtuallu unlimited authority over his slave women. It would not be correct to say that there were no constraints. Some authors have attempted to play down the extent of inter-racial encounters. One author writes, "Some people seem to assume that, just because the law allowed owners to ravish slave girls, it had to be going on all over the place. This ignores the other forces (social, moral, religious, economic) that were involved. For instance, the seduction of the wife or daughter of a slave would undermine the plantation's discipline, which the planters worked hard to maintain. It would also undermine the planter's reputation both in the slave quarters, in his own home, and in the whole white community." These factors are all relevant, but so is human nature. And with white men in virtually absolute authority over black women, there was no way to prevent sexual encounters.

Extent

I am not sure about actual statistics on mixed race this. One historiab reports that at the time of the Civil War there were about 0.4 million mullato children out of a slave population of about 3.9 million. [Franklin, p. 205.] Unfortunately the author does not cite the source of this data. That would be over 10 percent. While there are no obviously no statistics on this, the proof of what happened is clearly observable in physical appearance. Perhaps historian using the assessing the DNA evidence will be able to assess this.

Sources

Aughey, John H. Tupelo (Chicago: Rhodes & McClure Publishing Co., 1905). Reverend lived and ministered in the South for 11 years. Reverend John H. Aughey Aughey lived in the South for 11 years. He was greatly offended by white slave masters taking advantage of slave women. Thus his account must be viewed wih some skepticism, especially the extent to which it occurred.

Franklin, John Hope. From Slavery to Freeedom: A History of Negro Americans (Vintage: New York, 1967), 686p.






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Created: 12:16 AM 5/8/2007
Last updated: 12:16 AM 5/8/2007