Mixed Race Studies

Accepting the validity of the racial view, it becomes clear that the attributes and status of marginal communities are essentially functions of their physical and social environment, and not of Divine displeasure or some mysterious incompatibility of ‘blood,’ a fluid which has nothing to do with informed social discussion. Certainly, there are disharmonic and socially maladjusted individuals in such communities. Perhaps, too, their incidence is higher than it is among more integrated groups, though that remains to be proved, but they are susceptible to the same methods of improvement that are applied to ‘pure’ peoples. I subscribe without qualification to the prevention of undeniably dysgenic matings, whether exogamous or endogamous, but not to the conceit that colour and economic success are indices of desirability.

Cedric Dover. Half-Caste. London, 1937. Secker & Warburg.

For some time past the writer has been in close contact with girls of Anglo-Chinese and Anglo-Negro origin who are unable to find employment because social stigma refuses to allow them to mix in our society in the ordinary way. They are British citizens, and they are the weakest of our citizens, and as such need protection. Whatever action may be taken to prevent such intermixture in the future, if it can be proved to be undesirable, it certainly seems a bad policy of citizenship to penalize half-castes for a fault of birth for which they are in no way responsible. Liverpool, always to the fore in attempts towards civic betterment, has formed an “Association for the Welfare of Half-Caste Children” (Hon. Sec., Mr. G. E. Haynes, B.Sc., University Settlement, Nile Street, Liverpool), and a wholetime research worker [Muriel E. Fletcher] has been appointed. We hope that other seaport towns may soon follow this example of scientific research into a serious problem…

Rachel M. Fleming, “Human hybrids in various parts of the world,” The Eugenics Review, Volume 21, Number 4, (January 1930) 257–263.

In full agreement with this suggestion of glandular disturbance is the general opinion of biologists that the human hybrid shows a typical instability in mental and moral respects—a want of balance.  His motives and actions are incalculable, his impulses stronger that his self-control. I feel more and more convinced that the inmates of our prisons and asylums are to a large extent recruited from these types of mixed race, who numbers are constantly rising on account of increasing intercourse between populations from all parts of the world.

Jon Alfred Mjöen, “Race-crossing and glands: Some human hybrids and their parent stocks,” The Eugenics Review, Volume 23, Number 1, (April 1931) 31-40.

School Counselors’ Perceptions of Biracial Children: A Pilot Study

Professional School Counseling
American School Counselor Association
December 2002
page 120-129

Henry L. Harris, Associate Professor and Chair of Department of Counseling
University of North Carolina, Charlotte

Biracial children represent a growing segment of America’s increasingly diverse population. According to Kalish (1995), data from the National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS) showed between 1978 and 1992, the number of biracial children born in the United States increased more than 50%, “rising from about 63,700 to almost 133,200” (p. 1). During the same period, biracial births grew from 2.1% to 3.9% of all births (Kalish). Jamison (1999) suggested the number of biracial individuals at between 2 million and 5 million, and noted this is a significant underestimation. Past societal guidelines and restrictions have contributed to this underestimation because, in many situations, biracial children were simply identified with the parent of color. According to the 2000 Census report, the most recent numbers indicate that people of two or more races made up 2.4 % (6,826,228) of the national population, and 42% (2,856,886) of them were under the age of 18 (U.S. Bureau of Census, 2001). In this article, a biracial individual is defined as someone having biological parents from two different racial or ethnic groups (Winn & Priest, 1993).

The research on the unique issues biracial children encounter has produced mixed results. Some studies found biracial children were more likely to experience higher degrees of problems associated with racial identity development, social marginality, isolation, sexuality conflicts, career dreams, and academic and behavioral concerns (Brandell, 1988; Gibbs, 1987; Gibbs & Moskowitz-Sweet, 1991; Herring, 1992; Teicher, 1968; Winn & Priest, 1993). However, other investigations yielded more positive results discovering biracial individuals overall were assertive, independent, and emotionally secure and creative individuals with a positive self concept (Kerwin, Ponterotto, Jackson, & Harris, 1993; Poussaint, 1984; Tizard & Phoenix, 1995).

Historically, biracial individuals have been analyzed and judged from biological and sociocultural perspectives (Nakashima, 1992). Originally, the biological perspective characterized individuals from interracial unions as mentally, physically, and morally weak beings and because of their perceived genetic inferiority, they faced insurmountable social, emotional, and psychological problems (Krause, 1941; Provine, 1973). The sociocultural perspective supported the belief that biracial people were social and cultural misfits, incapable of fitting in or gaining acceptance in any racial group, destined to lead a life of loneliness and confusion. The ultimate goal behind both perspectives was racial division, which socially and legally discouraged Caucasians from marrying and/or having children with people of color (Nakashima). For example, in 1945, more than half of the states had active laws banning interracial marriages. Twenty-one years later, 19 of those states still had such laws on the books. It was not until 1967 that the U.S. Supreme Court ruled, in Loving v. Virginia, that states could not legally prohibit interracial marriages (Parker, 1999). Needless to say, the different forms of past social and legal discrimination against interracial marriages have also influenced children of such marriages in a negative manner (Wardle, 1991)…

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Blackness in Germany

Afroeuropa: Journal of Afroeuropean Studies
Volume 1, Number 1 (2007)

Tomi Adeaga
Universität Siegen, Deutschland

This paper analyses the situation of the Black population in Germany. It revises its historical origins, well back in history, although it focuses more on the experience of the younger generation, particularly people of mixed parentage who are exposed to an endemic racism rooted in the stereotype of Africans as the most primitive race on earth. The survival of the myth of white superiority has been preserved in Germany and little effort has been made to integrate black Germans into mainstream society.

…Being black in Germany means that one is a foreigner, who has to struggle against stereotypical notions of the African continent as one at the bottom of the evolution ladder. The issue of Blackness is determined by the operational modes of the political climate in Germany, which depends largely on the political party in power. A look at the political situation at work in Germany before World War I shows that racial discrimination already existed in the societies because of the way the German colonies were operated before they were taken over by France and England. We only have to look at the Herero Uprising in Namibia whereby thousands of Hereros were killed. The Swakopmunder street is a proof of the German colonial history. What seems to have gone lost in history is the fact that the first official German concentration camp was built there in 1907 and all the Hereros who dared to be against the German hegemony were killed there. The Africans in Germany, including the Francophones in the French army stationed on the Rhine river, who had relationships with German women and gave birth to mixed children which were seen as exotic and unwanted, were victimised along with the Jews, the Roma and the Sinti and other non-Aryan foreigners by the German NS government.

In an attempt to shed some light on the dynamics of cultural co-existence in multi-ethnic societies as a way of bridging the gap between them, Homi Bhabha has developed the concept of “cultural hybridity” to discuss the dynamics of the impacts of colonisation. However, hybridity in my opinion is the co-existence of two cultures which do not mix together…

…Bhabha’s observation identifies the differences in cultures existing within the same country. Indeed multiculturalism is highly complex in its composition. However, it is secondary within German contexts because the dominant factor still remains the skin colour, the otherness. There is often the tendency for politicians and even Germans themselves to claim that Germany is a homogeneous country. However, this claim is an illusory one because of the existence of multiple cultures due to the mass migrations both from parts of Europe, and the rest of the world. Intermarriages have also always taken place. Moreover, since people of African origins have been in Germany as far back as the 10th century or even earlier, the possibility of mixed African presence has always been there. But their presence became a national problem as the political climate became hostile to people considered as threats to the German existence and supremacy…

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Protective factors promoting psychosocial resilience in biracial youths

University of Alaska, Fairbanks
2010
127 pages
Publication Number: AAT 3421517
ISBN: 9781124214290

Gail K. Kawakami-Schwarber

Presented to the Faculty of the University of Alaska ,Fairbanks in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy

Resilience in adolescents is the achievement of positive outcomes and the attainment of developmental tasks in the face of significant risk. This study identified protective factors promoting resilience in the development of positive self-identity in biracial youths. The rapidly rising biracial youth population is a vulnerable group facing potentially higher risks for mental health and behavioral issues compared to their monoracial counterparts. Identity development, a central psychosocial task of adolescence, is a complex task for biracial youths since they must integrate two ethnic identities. For biracial youths, mastery of the psychosocial identity developmental task can be daunting as they face stressors such as racial stigmas and negative stereotypes, which may lead to identity problems manifesting during adolescence. Sixteen biracial individuals ranging from age 18 to 29 years participated in this qualitative research project. Comparisons were made to identify patterns and themes for factors affecting self-esteem and ethnic identity level among the participants. Brought to light were culturally-based protective factors stemming from individual, family, and social domains promoting psychosocial resilience in fostering healthy biracial identity resolution. Risk factors unique for the biracial population were also identified. The findings underscore the importance in understanding how the environment shapes and influences the ways biracial youth negotiate their dual identity. The research results can be integrated into appropriate prevention and intervention techniques for application by professionals and families to further healthy identity resolution in biracial youths.

Table of Contents

• Signature Page
• Title Page
• Abstract
• Table of Contents
• List of Figures
• List of Tables
• List of Appendices
• Acknowledgements
• Chapter 1 Introduction
  • Statement of Problem
  • Statement of Purpose
  • Definition of Terms
• Chapter 2 Literature Review
  • Vulnerable Population
  • Issues Related to the Biracial Population
  • Adolescent Identity Development
  • Psychosocial Identity Process
  • Ecological Theory
  • Race, Culture, and Stereotypes
  • Racial Identity Studies
  • Ethnic Identity and Self-Esteem
  • Ethnic Identity Models
  • Biracial Identity Models
    • Posten’s biracial identity development model (BID)
    • Wardle’s biracial model
    • The Kerwin-Ponterotto model
    • Root’s biracial identity resolution theory
  • Resilience Concept
  • Models of Resilience
    • Challenge model
    • Cumulative effect model
    • Interaction model
  • Factors Influencing Resilience
    • Risk factors
    • Protective factors
      • Psychosocial protective factors
    • Self-Esteem
  • Developmental Outcomes of Resilience
• Chapter 3 Method
  • Participants
  • Apparatus
  • Procedures
  • Data Analysis
• Chapter 4 Results
  • Self-Esteem Ranking and Data Comparison
    • Heritage and parents’ heritage
    • First generation parents
    • Cultural knowledge
    • Self-identity and parental ethnic identification
    • Self-identity and identification with parents
    • Self-identity and role models
  • Ethnic Identity Levels and Data Comparison
    • Heritage and parents’ heritage
    • First generation parents
    • Culture knowledge
    • Self-identity and parental ethnic identification
    • Self-identity and identification with parents
    • Self-identity and role models
  • Comparison Between Self-Esteem Ranking and Ethnic Identity Levels
    • Self-esteem ranking
    • Ethnic identity levels
  • Identified Protective Factors
    • Personal Factors
    • Ethnic mixture
    • Ethnic heritage
  • Identity Factors
    • Positive and consistent labels from parents
    • Parental ethnic identity assignment
    • Identification with parents
  • Coping Skills
    • Ethnic identity discrepancy management
    • Identity fluctuation
  • Family Factors
    • First generation parent
    • Parents as role models
    • Extended family contact and acceptance
  • Social and Community Factors
    • Cultural knowledge
    • Peer acceptance
  • Potential Risk Factors
• Chapter 5 Discussion
  • Protective Factors for Biracial Identity Development
  • Additional Protective Factors
  • Risk Factors and Resilience
  • Implications
  • Practical Applications
  • Limitations
  • Future Directions
  • Conclusion
• References

List of Figures

• Figure 1: Potential risk factors identified for biracial identity development
• Figure 2: Protective factors identified for biracial identity development

List of Tables

• Table 1: Self-Esteem, Heritage, Parents’ Heritage and Generation to United States
• Table 2: Self-Esteem, Self-Identity, Parental’s Ethnic Identification and Cultural Knowledge
• Table 3: Self-Esteem, Self-Identity, Role Model and Identified with Parent
• Table 4: Ethnic Identity, Heritage, Parents’ Heritage and Generation to United States
• Table 5: Minority-White Ethnic Identity, Heritage and Parents’ Heritage
• Table 6: Minority-Minority Ethnic Identity, Heritage and Parents’ Heritage
• Table 7: Ethnic Identity, Self-Identity, Parental Ethnic Identification and Cultural Knowledge
• Table 8: Minority-White Ethnic Identity, Self-Identity, Parental Ethnic Identification and Cultural Knowledge
• Table 9: Minority-Minority Ethnic Identity, Self-Identity, Parental Ethnic Identification and Cultural Knowledge
• Table 10: Ethnic Identity, Self-Identity, Role Model and Identified with Parent
• Table 11: Self-Esteem Ranking with Ethnic Identity Score
• Table 12: Ethnic Identity Ranking with Self-Esteem Scores

List of Appendicies

• Appendix A: Informed Consent Form
• Appendix B: Demographic Questionnaire
• Appendix C: Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale
• Appendix D: Multigroup Ethnic Identity Measure
• Appendix E: Interview Guide

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Race mixture

Eugenics Review
Volume 25, Number 3 (October 1933)
pages 161–166.

K. B. Aikman

Abridged from a paper read before the Eugenics Society on June 20th, 1933.

The immense advances in the last hundred years in the medical sciences and their application have greatly reduced death-rates, not only in civilized countries, but in savage countries as well. As a result there has occurred a general increase of population and thus of migration, which has had important effects-economic, social, moral, religious and biological—both on the peoples who have provided the emigrants and on those who have received them.

We must accept it as a fact that large numbers of different races cannot live side by side and compete for their daily bread without the production of racial mixture. There is one exception to this generalization: in proportion as there is intense antagonism, usually religious, the mixing of the races will be lessened. The practical drawbacks, however, to such a method of race-separation, are proved by the history of India. We need merely note that race-mixing will take place when opportunity occurs and ask ourselves how far is this process desirable. It is a question that cannot be answered in a word, because the nature of the races crossed is important.

THE PRIMARY RACES

Mankind may be divided into three Primary Races: (1) The Negro, blackskinned, with short woolly hair and, typically, African; (2) The Mongolian, yellowskinned, with long straight hair and, typically, Asiatic; (3) The Caucasian, whiteskinned, with abundant wavy hair and, typically, European. These groups may be subdivided, but I propose to do so only in the last case, classifying the Caucasians as the Fair Caucasians of the north and west of Europe and the Dark Caucasians of the south and east.

So great are the differences between these three Primary Races that they are comparable to the differences between the species of the zoologist rather than to those between the varieties. Therefore, the crosses between Primary Races will be described as hybrids, and the offspring of the more closely related varieties and of the half-breeds, as mongrels.

EFFECTS OF HYBRIDIZATION

It may be said that the bulk of medical opinion is against hybridization between the Primary Races and that the best eugenic opinion is definitely against it. Thus, Major Leonard Darwin wrote: “Theoretical reasons can be adduced for believing that inter-breeding between widely divergent races may result in the production of types inferior to both parent stocks: and that this would be the result of miscegenation is at all events a common belief.” Professor Ruggles Gates also supports this view. The biological objection is based upon the fact that, in these crosses, groups of inherited characteristics remain associated or “segregate,” with the result that the offspring has a “chaotic constitution.” Each variety of man or of animal, in the course of time, acquires a constitution adapted to its particular mode of life and to the diseases to which it is exposed. When such constitutions are mixed by inter-breeding, a new constitution is produced, which is not adapted to the mode of life of either parent and too often is not fitted for any actual environment whatever.

As examples of simple skeletal maladaptations, we find hybrids with skulls too large to permit of their birth; others with teeth too large for their jaws; and others with either the upper or the lower jaw a misfit with its neighbour. There are, however, many more complicated disabilities, such as altered resistance to disease and disharmonies of the internal secretions. It is found that the greater the difference between the races crossed, the less likely is the result to be beneficial: that the Caucasian is nearer to the Mongolian than either is to the Negro, and that the Dark Caucasian is nearer to the Mongolian than is the Fair Caucasian, and so the Dark Caucasian cross is the less harmful of the two.

These generalizations, to which there may be exceptions, are supported by the American, Professor N. S. Shaler:

“It is not only a general belief that hybrids of blacks and whites are less prolific and more liable to diseases than the pure bloods of either stock, but also that they seldom live so long. Statistics lacking on this point, I have questioned a large number of physicians well placed for judgment in this matter. All of them agreed that the offspring of a union between pure black and white parents is, on the average, much shorter lived and much less fertile than the race of either parent. My father, a physician of experience and a critical observer, who had spent more than half a century in Cuba and the slave-holding South, stated that, in his opinion, he had never seen mulattoes, that is a cross between white and pure black, who had attained the age of sixty years, and that they were often sterile. The judgment of medical men seems to be that when the blood of either race preponderates, and in proportion as it verges to one or the other, the longevity and fertility increase or decrease.”…

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Human hybrids in various parts of the world

Eugenics Review
Volume 21, Number 4 (January 1930)
pages 257–263

Rachel M. Fleming

Political issues involving the right of so-called ‘superior’ races to preserve privileges denied to other races on account of their so-called ‘inferiority’ are tending to darken counsel in the study of racial biology. Another form of political effort is a desire to demonstrate separateness of physical type, so that a subject race may claim autonomy. It is only with painful slowness that man is learning to study himself scientifically and dispassionately, and to apply biological and genetical laws) to his own case. Humanity to-day is the result of long racial crossing; it is difficult to apply the term “pure” to any physical type. All human races are capable of fertile crossing one with another, and man’s tendency to wander both over land and sea, frequently unaccompanied by the women of his own type, has led to marked heterogeneity of inheritance everywhere. The story of the “Sons of God” and the “daughters of men” is world wide and possibly as old as the oldest prehistoric find. And yet in a book published in 1928 we read, “Only a pure race is a strong race”; while the facile statement that the coloured half-caste inherits the worst of both sides, as if the laws of heredity bowed to our colour prejudice, is commonly quoted and believed…

SUPERIOR HALF-CASTES

E. Rodenwaldt has therefore rendered a great service to the study of human heredity by seizing the opportunity of examining the results of an experiment in human crossing which has been worked out in Kisar, an island in the East Indies 127°35’E. long., 8°5’S. lat. His results are published in Die Mestizen auf Kisar (in German) in two volumes, one of which gives detailed measurements and photographs of the Mestizos (half-castes) whom he observed. It contains a remarkable family tree showing the very complicated inter-marriages between the descendants of Mestizo families, and also, by an ingenious device, indicating their skin, eye, and hair colour heredity. No student of human heredity can afford to omit the study of these volumes. The Mestizos of Kisar are ideal material for such a study. The Dutch East Company had a station here in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, and soldiers of Dutch, French, German, and British nationality became the ancestors of the Mestizos. From 1819 onwards the island was no longer a station for troops, and the half-caste families formed a group which felt itself superior to the natives and tended to inter-marry. Thus we have available for research a sort of natural experiment in human breeding which has gone on for about two centuries…

…ANGLO-NEGRO AND ANGLO-CHINESE

Recently the writer visited Cape Town and had many conversations with workers among the ‘coloured’ (half-caste) colony there. One worker of long experience had observed the same rule of a higher cultural level and a general demand for better living conditions among those with a large admixture of white blood. He suggested that encouragement of intermixture between the best of the coloured people and the whites would tend to raise the standard of life in Cape Town. Some ‘coloured’ people with a large admixture of white blood showed such small traces of native inheritance that they had “passed over” into the white section and were making good there. Needless to say, this solution is most unpalatable to advocates of  ‘race purity,’ and there may be sound objections to it. On the other hand, it may ultimately be less harmful than the present cruel system of stigmatizing the half-caste socially, and so creating a moral and social environment for him which adds undesirables to the community. For some time past the writer has been in close contact with girls of Anglo-Chinese and Anglo-Negro origin who are unable to find employment because social stigma refuses to allow them to mix in our society in the ordinary way. They are British citizens, and they are the weakest of our citizens, and as such need protection. Whatever action may be taken to prevent such intermixture in the future, if it can be proved to be undesirable, it certainly seems a bad policy of citizenship to penalize half-castes for a fault of birth for which they are in no way responsible. Liverpool, always to the fore in attempts towards civic betterment, has formed an “Association for the Welfare of Half-Caste Children” (Hon. Sec., Mr. G. E. Haynes, B.Sc., University Settlement, Nile Street, Liverpool), and a wholetime research worker [Muriel E. Fletcher] has been appointed. We hope that other seaport towns may soon follow this example of scientific research into a serious problem…

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Race-crossing and glands: Some human hybrids and their parent stocks

Eugenics Review
Volume 23, Number 1 (April 1931)
pages 31-40

Jon Alfred Mjöen, Director
Vindern Biological Laboratory (Oslo, Norway)

(Paper read at the ninth meeting, 1930, at he the International Federation of Eugenic Organizations.)

The earlier displacements of population, the migrations of which history relates, usually took place during long epochs of time.  Amongst the greatest were the migrations of the Arabs, the Semites, and the Mongols.  These wholesale movements of population were of quite a different character from the Viking raids from the Mediterranean lands and Northern France, the Gothic invasion of Italy and Spain, the Norman’s conquering expeditions to England, the expulsion of the Huguenots, or the emigration of Puritans to the United States, and the Walloons to Sweden.

But even the most stupendous invasions that history records, hardly assumed such dimensions as the movements of population we have witnessed in our own days.  The system of control that is called inspection of passports shows, for example, that the racial elements of alien origin which in a three-year period after the War have crossed into Central Europe from East, number no less that 600,000.  The emigrants from the East settled in Berlin, Paris, and other large cities (according as the rate of exchange varied), and to-day they form a constantly increasing contingent of Asiatics, Russians, Poles, Galicians, Greeks, and various others.  New York alone was invaded, in the course of a three-year period, by a similar contingent of foreign racial elements amounting to about on and half million.

Nobody who with open eyes has observed the masses in the great modern cities, Paris, Berlin, New York, Chicago, will have failed to be struck by the manner in which the racial physiognomy of the population is in process of changing.  Clean, open racial features are becoming more and more rare in these masses in the slums, which in the real sense of the word are amorphous.  All unity of form is dissolved, and a hideous confusion of all possible coulours and shapes from all the races of the earth has taken place.

The picture which we see before our eyes everyday, so to speak, on journeys in Europe, North Africa, and America, raises a question of importance: What will be the effect, the final result of this gigantic blood-mixing?  The picture gives an impression of lack of guiding-instinct, lack of stability and balance.  But is this lack of balance a result of social or biological causes; and have we any reason to believe that crossing with foreign races will have a deleterious effect upon the native stock?…

…Hybrids’ Tempermental Instability

In full agreement with this suggestion of glandular disturbance is the general opinion of biologists that the human hybrid shows a typical instability in mental and moral respects—a want of balance.  His motives and actions are incalculable, his impulses stronger that his self-control. I feel more and more convinced that the inmates of our prisons and asylums are to a large extent recruited from these types of mixed race, who numbers are constantly rising on account of increasing intercourse between populations from all parts of the world.

A special group of individuals which is causing a great deal of trouble in our northern countries, Norway and Sweden, is the Gipsy (tater) group. We know very litte about their origin, except that they are badly race-mixed and have all the characteristics of unbalanced hybrids.  They are vagabonds, beggars, loafers, and criminals.  Whole families of this hybrid population are filling up our prisons and asylums.

One hears, of course, of prominent hybrids—Booker Washington, the American teacher and reformer, was a Mulatto, and Porfirio Díaz, President of Mexico, was a Mestizo. But they are exceptions to the rule, and they are few compared with the enormous number of human hybrids all over the world.  We find it very often stated that the famous Swedish writer August Strindberg, was of very “mixed ascendency.”  I do not know how far this is assertion is to be relied upon.  But what would be likely to be the result if we advocated race-crossing on such premisses?  If by deliberate experimental breeding of men we could produce 10,000 ‘Stindberg blends,’ we should obtain no small contigent with Strindberg’s brutality, his melancholy, his capriciousness, his violent temper, his pessimism, his cynicism towards women (though he married four times), and all his lack of self-control—and yet we might be cheated of the expected types with Strindberg’s creative genius…

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Hierarchies of whiteness in the geographies of empire: Thomas Thistlewood and the Barrets of Jamaica

New West Indian Guide / Nieuwe West-Indische Gids
Volume 80, Numbers 1&2 (2006)
pages 5-43
DOI: 10.1163/13822373-90002486

Cecilla A. Green, Associate Professor, Sociology
Maxwell School of Syracuse University

Shows how a racial solidarity between whites in colonial Jamaica during slavery developed, but covered class differences between whites. Author examines the differences between the lesser-white, socially mobile settlers, and the upper plantocracy. She looks especially at social-structural factors, in particular genealogy and reproduction, that separated upper plantocratic families and dynasties, with connections with Britain, e.g. through absentee plantation owners, from less wealthy white settlers, that obtained intermediate positions as overseers, and generally were single males. She relates this further to the context with a white minority and a majority of slaves, and with relatively less women than men among the whites, that influenced differing reproductive patterns. The upper-class tended to achieve white marrying partners from Britain, alongside having children with slaves or people of colour, while lower-class whites mostly reproduced only in this last way. Author exemplifies this difference by juxtaposing the family histories and relationships, and relative social positions of Thomas Thistlewood, an overseer who came alone, and had an intermediate position, and the upper-class wealthy Barrett family, who were large land and slave owners, and established a powerful white dynasty in Jamaica, with British connections, over centuries, and that also included, sidelined, coloured offspring.

…Even here there are important qualifications. Thistlewood is not a candidate for the dual marriage system who decides to forego the benefits of a White wife in part because of the assurance of other conditions of reproduction that guarantee full maintenance of class status. This is true, for example, of George Goodin Barrett, Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s great-uncle, discussed below, who mates exclusively (at least, in self-acknowledged terms) with a mulatto slave, Elissa Peters. Their children suffer a fate not untypical of the offspring of such couplings: they are not given the Barrett name, but they are sent to England to be schooled and domiciled according to the terms of their father’s will, and they receive secondary (and inevitably contestable) bequests. Thistlewood, in contrast, gives his son John his name. He does not have the economic wherewithal or the genealogical amplitude and latitude to school him in England, and evinces no aspirations or plans to that effect. John is schooled locally and is later apprenticed to a master carpenter, William Hornby.

It should be pointed out here that not all large planter names were so closely guarded (outside of the widespread process of giving estate slaves the surnames of their owners). Another strategy, pursued by Martin or Martyn Williams, the dually married husband of George’s properly pedigreed first cousin (who later becomes the widowed mistress of George’s brother), was to both pass on the name and petition the courts to declare his illegitimate mixed-race children, whose mother was a free Black woman, legally White. To complicate matters, there is a third option that both Williams’s “dual marriage” obligations and the changed inheritance laws of his and George’s time preclude him from pursuing (whatever his personal inclinations): bequeathing his main properties to Colored heirs. His properties are passed on to his legitimate White heirs. The case of Molly or Mary Cope (née Dorill), the fully endowed illegitimate quadroon daughter of Thistlewood’s late employer (now his employer, under coverture of her White husband) is different, but in part only because of the absence of competing claims from a “legitimate” White family. She appears to us, through the admittedly limited medium of Thistlewood’s cryptic daily log, as the tragic dupe of a strategy to re-inscribe and recover a proper plantocratic and racial destiny for the at-risk property and lineage of her paternal ancestry. Once she has fulfilled all the right conditions she becomes practically dispensable. She confides to Thistlewood that her husband “wants her to cut the entail off and settle upon him for life” (Hall 1999:70). She is being pressed to transfer title to the estate to her abusive and incompetent White husband…

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