[Ads-l] big apple (UNCLASSIFIED)

[James Landau]

On  Mon, 17 Feb 2020 03:37:42 Zone -0500    Wilson Gray <hwgray at GMAIL.COM> wrote: <quote><snip> 
 the one-drop rule is a logical extension of the law, originally promulgated in
the Virginia Colony, that, if the mother is a slave, then the child is a
slave, regardless of the social and/or the racial status of the father: if
an ancestor was black, then the descendant is black. <end quote> Thank you for a valuable data point. I have several times seen statements that the "one-drop" rule was invented during Reconstruction times as a segregation measure.  I was dubious, since it seemed to me that such a rule had to have been invented early on during slavery in the US.  It would not have taken long after slaves were first imported for there to have been children with one parent a slave and one white, and some rule must have soon been invented as to the status of these children.  That a law was  promulgated in the "Virginia Colony" (i.e. pre-1775) answers the question for me. There is one exception to the "one-drop" rule.  People whose ancestry includes both African and Native American frequently self-identify as such rather than as African-American.  There are a number of terms for such people, of which "Afro-Indiginous" and "Melungeon" seem to the be most common.  I have worked with two such people, by name Correy Bolling and Pearl Running Deer, both of whom had very dark African-looking skin color but who identified themselves as Natime American (specifically Cherokee).  James Landau
jjjrlandau at netscape.com

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org