Mixed Race Studies

Gouldtown: A Very Remarkable Settlement of Ancient Date

J. B. Lippincott Company, Philadelphia (Digitized by Google)
1913
237 pages

William Steward, A.M.

Rev. Theophilus G. Stweard, D.D., Chaplain, U.S. Army, Retired

Studies of some sturdy examples of the simple live, toghether with sketches of early colonial history of Cumberland county and Southern New Jersey and some early genealogical records.

CHAPTER I: Gouldtown; its tradition; its people; its general History.

In Judge Lucius Q. C. Elmer’s history of Cumberland County, New Jersey, written in 1865, occurs this statement:

“Gouldtown—partly in the Northern part of Fairfield, and partly in Bridgeton Townships—although never more than a settlement of mulattoes, principally bearing the names of Gould and Pierce, scattered over a considerable territory, is of quite ancient date. The tradition is that they are descendants of Fenwick.”

Judge Elmer, a distinguished Supreme Court Jurist of New Jersey, was the son of General Ebenezer Elmer, of New Jersey, who was an officer in the Revolutionary Army, first as an ensign, and shortly after as lieutenant in a company, and later, being a physician, serving as a surgeon; he served, in all, during the war of the Revolution, a period of seven years and eight months. In 1814, he commanded a brigade of militia called out for the defence of Philadelphia against the British, and was ever after that known as General Elmer. Judge Elmer was born soon after the close of the Revolution in 1798, and had ample opportunity and ability for research in his native county. He died in 1888.

Much interest has always been taken in the community of Gouldtown by the neighboring communities, and this was always of a friendly character; in early times because of its traditional descent, and later because of the ethnological features recognizable.

General Elmer and his son were accustomed, on Sunday afternoons to meet in a schoolhouse and catechize the children of Gouldtown, in the neighborhood, in the years following the Revolution. These children and youth would not all be mulattoes (the term “mulattoes” is used in this book in its general significance, applying to the people of color of mixed blood) however, for in the community were pure white families—as for instance the Woodruff’s, the Luptons, the Fullers, the Seeleys, and the Whites, and others; traces of whom are to be found only in the farms they left, which were known by their names as the “Fuller Fields,” the “hite Fields,” the “Jay Fields “; the names remaining a century or more after their owners had vanished. Only one of these names has been perpetuated in a village, and that of recent date and several miles distant from the original location. This is Woodruffs, about three or four miles northward from Gouldtown. It is a wealthy farming settlement on the line of the Central Railroad, and has a Methodist Church and a schoolhouse and post-office.

Gouldtown is comprised in two sections—following the two family names of Gould and Pierce, which were always known by their separate names, Gouldtown and Piercetown, but both known comprehensively as Gouldtown. It is remarkable in that it has perpetuated its family name in its locality for nearly two hundred years; also because it is a community of mulattoes who, contrary to the pet theory of some astute ethnological scientists, have perpetuated themselves generation after generation for almost two centuries; remarkable, too, for the known longevity of its people, who do not begin to grow old, as is often said, until they come to three-score years, and a number of whom have reached the century mark, one of whom (Ebenezer Pierce Bishop) is still living, at this writing, who is one hundred and six years old, and one of whom (Mrs. Lydia Gould Sheppard) was buried in the year nineteen hundred and eleven, at the age of one hundred and two, in the Gouldtown Cemetery, and a number of others who are still living at ages between seventy and ninety-five years…

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Multiracial Identity Development: Understanding Choice of Racial Identity in Asian-White College Students

Journal of the Indiana University Student Personnel Association
2011
pages 38-45

Ashley Viager
Higher Education and Student Affairs Program
Indiana University

Asian-White individuals will have greater representation in higher education in coming years, and student affairs professionals must learn how these students make meaning of their racial identities in order to best serve the needs of this group. Analyzing Poston’s (1990) and Root’s (2003) theories of multiracial identity development, this paper examines the experiences unique to this population to demonstrate that Asian-White individuals have the ability to choose from multiple racial identity outcomes.

In 2000, the United States government conducted a census in which multiracial individuals could self-identify with more than one racial category. Multiracial individuals are those whose parents are of two or more different and distinct federally recognized racial groups (Chapman-Huls, 2009). Previously, multiracial individuals had not been formally recognized in the United States. Instead, multiracial individuals who had one White parent were primarily classified according to their parent of color (Zack, 2001). This system of racial classification, also known as “hypodescent,” originated in the eighteenth century as a way to “maintain White racial purity and to deny mixed race people access to privilege,” (Renn, 2004, p. 4) and reinforced rigid categories of race. The 2000 census formally challenged these previous notions of essentialist racial categories by recognizing those who blurred the boundaries.

One of the main purposes in the revision of the census was to reflect the growing prevalence of interracial marriage in American society (Perlmann & Waters, 2002). The multiracial population is one of the fastest growing minority groups in the United States (Shih & Sanchez, 2009), and by the year 2050, one in five Americans could self-identify as multiracial (Farley, 2001). Of any racial minority group in the United States, Asians, both native and U.S. born, register one of the highest rates of marriages outside their race, and marriages to Whites are the most prevalent (Lee & Bean, 2004; Qian, 1997). This growing trend means the population of young mixed race Asian Americans, specifically those who claim Asian and White descent, will increase (Min, 2006). As a result, Asian-White individuals will have significantly greater representation in higher education in the coming years. Because the Asian-White student population is growing, student affairs professionals must learn how these students make meaning of their racial identities. While few studies have explored the racial identity formation specific to Asian-White individuals (Khanna, 2004), current research on multiracial identity development can help student affairs professionals understand the Asian-White experience.

Acceptance or rejection from a racial group can significantly impact how a multiracial student chooses to identify. Multiracial identity theories rely on the notion that individuals “must make choices about their racial identification, navigate validation or invalidation around their choice, and resolve their in-between status while traveling pathways shaped by acceptance and/or denial” (Rockquemore & Laszloffy, 2005). Multiracial students often feel caught between their racial components, unable to fully identify with White students or with monoracial students of color (Renn, 1998). It is important to note, however, that multiracial students experience varying levels of dissonance based on factors that impact the way they identify, and current multiracial identity development models are too general to be applied to any one specific multiracial subpopulation. Asian-White individuals share similar experiences that make their process of racial identity development different from any other multiracial group, thus necessitating a theory that outlines the Asian-White racial identity developmental process. This paper will examine Poston’s (1990) and Root’s (2003) multiracial identity development theories to provide an overview of how various factors influence the racial identity outcomes of multiracial individuals. These theories will then be integrated with current literature regarding the experiences of Asian and Asian- White groups in American society to provide an understanding of the fluidity in racial identity choice for Asian-White individuals…

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