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1 William I. Bowditch, White Slavery in the United States 1 (1855)

handle is hein.slavery/whitslvus0001 and id is 1 raw text is: 4,YTI-SLAVERY TRACTS. No. 2. WHITE SLAVERY IN THE UNITED STATES. TnE rule of the Roman slave code -the child follows the condi- tion of the mother -is universally adopted in the Southern States. If the mother be a slave, the child is one also, notwithstanding the father is a free man. The effect of this rule is to enslave all the issue in the maternal line to the remotest generation. The father in each generation may be a free white person, so that soon not the slightest tinge of negro blood nor the faintest trace of negro feature may be visible, and yet the unfortunate being whose remote maternal ancestor was a negro is doomed to as hopeless a slavery as that ancestor ever was. With us the mixed races are generally called mulattoes, or per- sons of color; but in the West Indies names are given to the differ- ent degrees of the mixed races, expressive of their distance from the original stock. One ancestor in each generation being a white per- son, the child of the negro is called a mulatto; of the mulatto, a terceron ; of the tereeron, a quarteron ; and the child of the latter is called a quinteron. This is the last gradation, there being no visible difference between them and the whites, either in color or features. They are, indeed, often fairer than the Spaniards. (Ed- wards's West Indies, book 4, c. 1.) Judge O'Neall, of South Caro- lina, thinks even quadroons should always be rated as white. He says, When the blood is reduced to or below one eighth, the jury 6ught always to find the party white. And we know that terce- rons frequently pass for whites, so little real difference is there be- tween them and white persons, either in color or feature. (See 1 Dall. Rep. 167.) The laws of Virginia, Kentucky, Missouri, and Arkansas apparently rate as white all the mixed issue below tercerons. All 1 (1)

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