Mulatto Classification of Indians and other related Laws

[D J Thornton]

http://nativeamericansofdelawarestate.c ... 20Laws.htm


Also mentions Alabama Choctaw Chowan,,Fl, NC Easter Indians


For a perfect example of the confusion suffered by lawmakers attempting to place these mixed-bloods into some neat category, read this excerpt from the 1871 North Carolina Joint Senate and House Committee as they interviewed Robeson County Judge Giles Leitch about the 'free persons of color' living within his county:


Senate: Half of the colored population?

Leitch: Yes Sir; half of the colored population of Robeson County were never slaves at all…

Senate: What are they; are they Negroes?

Leitch: Well sir, I desire to tell you the truth as near as I can; but I really do not know what they are; I think they are a mixture of Spanish, Portuguese and Indian…

Senate: You think they are mixed Negroes and Indians?

Leitch: I do not think that in that class of population there is much Negro blood at all; of that half of the colored population that I have attempted to describe all have always been free…They are called 'mulattoes' that is the name they are known by, as contradistinguished from Negroes…I think they are of Indian origin.

Senate: I understand you to say that these seven or eight hundred persons that you designate as mulattoes are not Negroes but are a mixture of Portuguese and Spanish, white blood and Indian blood, you think they are not generally Negroes?

Leitch: I do not think the Negro blood predominates.

Senate: the word 'mulatto' means a cross between the white and the Negro?

Leitch: Yes sir.

Senate: You do not mean the word to be understood in that sense when applied to these people?

Leitch: I really do not know how to describe those people.

[D J Thornton]

http://sciway3.net/clark/freemoors/ARose.htm

Mulatto Classification in Colonial VA and NC

[christopherswink8]

I have found the last name Chavis in one of my North carolina lines.