# So how were slaves and free people told apart? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [March 9, 2012, 8:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-how-were-slaves-and-free-people-told-apart/615244 "2012-03-09T08:46:40Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![coremelt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/4491bb/32.png) [@coremelt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/coremelt)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2012, 5:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-how-were-slaves-and-free-people-told-apart/615244/41 "2012-03-16T17:34:58Z")
> [@md2000](#): > > So basically, if you define some of these as slavery, then slavery is legal and we’re back to the enforcing legal slavery issues. > **[No true Scotsman](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_true_Scotsman)** > > No true Scotsman or appeal to purity is an informal fallacy in which one modifies a prior claim in response to a counterexample by asserting the counterexample is excluded by definition. Rather than admitting error or providing evidence to disprove the counterexample, the original claim is changed by using a non-substantive modifier such as "true", "pure", "genuine", "authentic", "real", or other similar terms. > Philosopher Bradley Dowden explains the fallacy as an "ad hoc rescue" of a refuted ge... If you’re hired as a maid in Saudi Arabia, and your passport is taken from you and you don’t get it back until you’ve paid back the entire costs of getting there from India / Philippines PLUS interest, is that slavery or not? ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2012, 5:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-how-were-slaves-and-free-people-told-apart/615244/42 "2012-03-16T17:53:31Z")
Blake does make a point. The “one drop” laws did mean than many “High Yellow” people were treated as Black and also were slaves: > **[High yellow](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_yellow)** > > High yellow, occasionally simply yellow (dialect: yaller, yella), is a term used to describe a light-skinned person of white and black ancestry. It is also used as a slang for those thought to have "yellow undertones". The term was in common use in the United States at the end of the 19th century and the early decades of the 20th century, and is reflected in such popular songs of the era as "The Yellow Rose of Texas". > "High" is usually considered a reference to a social class system in which ski... “Many high yellows are as light skinned as Europeans, and even lighter than some Europeans.” > **[One-drop rule](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One-drop_rule)** > > The one-drop rule was a legal principle of racial classification that was prominent in the 20th-century United States. It asserted that any person with even one ancestor of black ancestry ("one drop" of "black blood") is considered black (Negro or colored in historical terms). It is an example of hypodescent, the automatic assignment of children of a mixed union between different socioeconomic or ethnic groups to the group with the lower status, regardless of proportion of ancestry in diffe Th... I think Blake did overstate “There was no racial element to slavery in the US either…” what I think he meant is that Slavery in the us wasn’t entirely a racial thing. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2012, 5:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-how-were-slaves-and-free-people-told-apart/615244/43 "2012-03-16T17:54:55Z")
Let us not hijack this with debates about modern “slavery” and what is and is not “slavery”, eh? ---
**Author:** ![Bridget\_Burke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7cd45c/32.png) [@Bridget\_Burke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bridget_Burke)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2012, 6:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-how-were-slaves-and-free-people-told-apart/615244/44 "2012-03-16T18:20:14Z")
> [@ralph124c](#): > > I once read (in one of Mark Twain’s essays) that Antebellum New Orleans accorded a fair bit of freedom to its slaves-slaves were allowed to congregate, had days off, etc. > How this was regulated I have no idea. The lives of slaves & free people of color (Creoles) in New Orleans were affected by the French & Spanish laws that had governed the colony before it was annexed by the USA. Generally, the US laws made things harder; then there was the CSA… Information on the Creoles [here](http://www.frenchcreoles.com/CreoleCulture/freepeopleofcolor/freepeopleofcolor.htm)… (Lots more could be said but I don’t have access to my sources right now.) ---
**Author:** ![treis](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/bc79bd/32.png) [@treis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/treis)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2012, 7:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-how-were-slaves-and-free-people-told-apart/615244/45 "2012-03-16T19:19:57Z")
> [@Blake](#): > > What you are failing to understand is that, while Black people were all assumed to be slaves, not all slaves were Black people. Not by a long, long chalk. Large numbers of slaves were White. They had not even the slightest trace of “Black” features. Some of them probably had no black genetics whatsoever. They were slaves because they had some remote Black ancestry, but every male progenitor for the past 10 generation had been white. They looked as white as Britney Spears. This is sooooo ridiculous. There weren’t a bunch of Britney Spears clones out there picking cotton. ---
**Author:** ![Lemur866](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lemur866/32/434_2.png) [@Lemur866](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lemur866)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2012, 8:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-how-were-slaves-and-free-people-told-apart/615244/46 "2012-03-16T20:19:28Z")
No, but there were lots of slaves who, if you saw them walking down the street, you would automatically think they were white. Now, how many is “a lot”? More than one or two. Of course the vast majority of slaves were of majority African ancestry. There were also lots that were of mixed African, European and Indian ancestry. But the literature of the time is filled with “blacks” “passing” as “white”. How the heck could a black person pass as white unless that person had majority European ancestry? The “one drop” rule made anyone who had any known black ancestors black. And any child born to a slave woman was also a slave. So there were plenty of mixed ancestry slave women who gave birth to children who could pass for white, but who were socially black and were slaves. By “plenty” I mean thousands. Of course if you went out to look at the field hands you’d see mostly people of african ancestry, with a few that were recognizably of mixed ancestry. But there were also people like [Sally Hemmings](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sally_Hemmings), who was 3/4ths European and 1/4 African, whose children by Thomas Jefferson were 7/8ths European. Sally Hemmings had a mixed race slave mother, her white father owned her, and she was the half-sister of Jefferson’s wife. And her 7/8ths European ancestry children by Jefferson were his slaves until after Jefferson’s death. Most eventually moved away and passed as white. How exactly they were treated by Jefferson is unknown, but they were recorded as slaves in his household records. Jefferson’s children were slaves. They looked white. There were lots of them. And similar stories were repeated all over America. And so we have white slaves all over America. I suppose it’s possible that some of these white slaves might have had zero African ancestry. Whether you could just kidnap a free person and enslave them would depend, though. Obviously this won’t work if the free person can just walk back home, or enlist the help of the local authorities. But free blacks were re-enslaved, and the usual method was to capture them and sell them someplace far away where no one knew them and if they escaped would be treated like any other fugitive slave. Kidnapping your next-door neighbor probably wouldn’t work so well, but kidnapping some random free black person and transporting them far away is a different story. And note that kidnapping a free person is different than kidnapping a slave. Kidnap a slave and you’ve committed a crime against another white person. Kidnap a free black person, and you’ve committed a crime against nobody important. ---
**Author:** ![MEBuckner](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mebuckner/32/2896_2.png) [@MEBuckner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MEBuckner)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2012, 8:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-how-were-slaves-and-free-people-told-apart/615244/47 "2012-03-16T20:50:11Z")
> [@DrDeth](#): > > Blake does make a point. The “one drop” laws did mean than many “High Yellow” people were treated as Black and also were slaves: > [High yellow - Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_yellow) > > “Many high yellows are as light skinned as Europeans, and even lighter than some Europeans.” > > [One-drop rule - Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One-drop_rule) > > I think Blake did overstate “There was no racial element to slavery in the US either…” what I think he meant is that Slavery in the us wasn’t entirely a racial thing. But your own (Wikipedia) cite notes that the “one-drop rule” was adopted _after_ slavery. Again according to Wikipedia: > [@](#): > > Despite the strictures of slavery, in the antebellum years, free people of mixed race could have up to one-eighth or one-quarter African ancestry (depending on the state) and be considered legally white. More were absorbed into the majority culture based simply on appearance, associations and carrying out community responsibilities. These and community acceptance were more important factors if a person’s racial status were questioned, not his or her documented ancestry. Thus, a blue-eyed blonde would likely be accepted by the community as “white” (and keeping such a person enslaved would be a challenge to the prevailing ideology of “racial superiority” which was used to justify slavery). The other end of the stick is that a “black” man–someone with skin color which caused them to be perceived as a “Negro”–was in danger of being enslaved based on the color of his skin (and some false testimony by a white man) even if he was legally free. ---
**Author:** ![Lemur866](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lemur866/32/434_2.png) [@Lemur866](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lemur866)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2012, 9:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-how-were-slaves-and-free-people-told-apart/615244/48 "2012-03-16T21:04:07Z")
How were Jefferson’s children kept as slaves, then? I don’t know if they were blue eyed and blonde haired, but they were 7/8ths white and appeared white, yet were kept as slaves. Eventually they were freed and most became socially white. Yet, they weren’t considered free because they appeared white. They were considered free because they were manumitted after Jefferson’s death. They may have eventually been socially white, but they were still born and lived as slaves, and while they were slaves they were socially black no matter what their appearance. ---
**Author:** ![treis](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/bc79bd/32.png) [@treis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/treis)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2012, 9:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-how-were-slaves-and-free-people-told-apart/615244/49 "2012-03-16T21:06:57Z")
I don’t deny that there were slaves that could pass as white. That’s a lot different than looking like Britney Spears or having white male ancestors back 10 generations. ---
**Author:** ![Lemur866](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lemur866/32/434_2.png) [@Lemur866](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lemur866)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2012, 9:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-how-were-slaves-and-free-people-told-apart/615244/50 "2012-03-16T21:16:40Z")
> [@treis](#): > > I don’t deny that there were slaves that could pass as white. That’s a lot different than looking like Britney Spears or having white male ancestors back 10 generations. If your mother was a slave, the fact that you had blonde hair or blue eyes didn’t make you free. You were still a slave, because your mother was a slave. As for 10 generations, I don’t know about that, but Jefferson’s children had white male ancestors for at least 4 generations. Thomas Jefferson was supposed to have blue eyes and red hair, so his 1/8th black slave children could have looked as white as Britney Spears. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2012, 9:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-how-were-slaves-and-free-people-told-apart/615244/51 "2012-03-16T21:48:48Z")
> [@MEBuckner](#): > > But your own (Wikipedia) cite notes that the “one-drop rule” was adopted _after_ slavery. Again according to Wikipedia: > > Thus, a blue-eyed blonde would likely be accepted by the community as “white” (and keeping such a person enslaved would be a challenge to the prevailing ideology of “racial superiority” which was used to justify slavery). The other end of the stick is that a “black” man–someone with skin color which caused them to be perceived as a “Negro”–was in danger of being enslaved based on the color of his skin (and some false testimony by a white man) even if he was legally free. True, the one drop laws were. But my cites also make it clear that you could be as little as ¼ or even 1/8th black and still be considered “colored”. You can look very “white” even if only ½ black. As my cite said “Many high yellows are as light skinned as Europeans, and even lighter than some Europeans.” ---
**Author:** ![The\_Lovely\_Margo\_Lane](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/34f0e0/32.png) [@The\_Lovely\_Margo\_Lane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Lovely_Margo_Lane)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2012, 10:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-how-were-slaves-and-free-people-told-apart/615244/52 "2012-03-16T22:22:40Z")
Last summer the keynote address at the Berkshire Conference on the History of Women dealt with this exact topic, and it was fascinating. [Here’s a PDF of an article by Rebecca Scott, a legal historian who was one of the speakers.](http://sitemaker.umich.edu/law.slavery.freedom/files/final-adelaide-pdf.pdf) She examines court records related to a woman named Adélaïde Métayer who came to the US as a refugee from Haiti. She had been a free woman for years and had papers from her former owner proving as much. Unfortunately, she entrusted these papers to a white man of her acquaintance who turned around and tried to prove through the courts that she belonged to him! She had to go through years of legal battles to prove time and again that she was neither a slave nor the particular property of her antagonist. Her children were kidnapped repeatedly **with the support of the police** with the intention of selling them into slavery as payment on debts, though they were in truth free-born. Her oldest son actually was sold into slavery permanently, with the full assent of the courts. Harrowing story. Scott starts the paper off with an examination what exactly made someone a slave in the eyes of the law of the place/time: > [@](#): > > Philosophically and juridically, the construct of a slave—a “person > with a price”—contains multiple ambiguities. Placing the category of > slave among the distinctions of persons “established by law,” the 1808 > Digest of the Civil Laws Now in Force in the Territory of Orleans > recognized that “slave” is not a natural category, inhering in human > beings. It is an agreement among other human beings to treat one of > their fellows as property. But the Digest did not specify how such a > property right came into existence in a given instance. The definition of > a slave was simply ostensive, pointing toward rather than analyzing its > object: “A slave is one who is in the power of a master and belongs to > him in such a manner, that the master may sell him. . . .” In other words, > the slave is the one who is held as a slave. > > The Digest’s definition of free men was equally extra-legal: “those > who have preserved their natural liberty.” Although under classical social > contract theories men were thought to give up a measure of “natural > liberty” in order to live in civil society under agreed-upon constraints, > Louisiana’s definition emphasized the broad personal liberty that free > men retained in civil society. The Digest’s two definitions, taken > together, pushed “slave” and “free” to far ends of a continuum, creating > ideal types, without any hint of how either of these conditions, allegedly > “established by law,” had in fact emerged from legitimate processes. The result of this was that > [@](#): > > The 1808 Digest described the status of slave as one of the > “distinctions of persons which are established by law.” Though said to be > “established by law,” the distinction between slave and free rested almost > entirely on existing relations of force. The Digest did not define as a > slave the person who was rightfully in the power of a master; it simply > pointed to the one who was in the power of a master. > > Louisiana law under the Digest, in effect, generally declined to > inquire into the circumstances of enslavement. And when the population > of the city of New Orleans was nearly doubled by the arrival of the Saint- > Domingue refugees, the stark results of that refusal became clear. > Thousands of men and women who had lived as free were declared to be > slaves, simply on the strength of the declaration of those who claimed > ownership of them. Scott’s main thesis as I understand it is that due to these ambiguities, a legal foundation for slavery is inherently unstable as it relies far too heavily on duelling reputations and unspoken understandings of who is and isn’t a slave. Also, that the state was involved in **actively creating the condition of slavery for individuals** , rather than just regulating a pre-exisiting condition. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2012, 10:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-how-were-slaves-and-free-people-told-apart/615244/53 "2012-03-16T22:38:13Z")
Those who are disputing the racial element in American slavery are missing a crucial point; the people who ran this system regarded race as the basis of this system. Yes, there were slaves who had mostly white ancestors and/or looked white. But the slave system regarded them as black, regardless of the reality of their ancestry or appearance. Being seen as black was a fundamental prerequisite to being a slave. There were no slaves who were regarded as white in the United States. There probably had been in early colonial America (although the proof is not definitive). But white slavery faded away very early on and non-white slavery became the only slavery in the country. ---
**Author:** ![Lemur866](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lemur866/32/434_2.png) [@Lemur866](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lemur866)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2012, 10:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-how-were-slaves-and-free-people-told-apart/615244/54 "2012-03-16T22:52:40Z")
Well, I’d agree that slavery was racially based in a sense. If we agree that race was defined socially and not by ancestry. Being black didn’t mean you were a slave, but being a slave meant you were black regardless of your ancestry. There absolutely were slaves who looked as white as Britney Spears, but they were defined as black regardless of how they looked. White-looking freed slaves could sometimes integrate into white society even among people who knew their ancestry, that’s what happened with some of Jefferson’s children. ---
**Author:** ![Belowjob2.0](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Belowjob2.0](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Belowjob2.0)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2012, 3:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-how-were-slaves-and-free-people-told-apart/615244/55 "2012-03-17T03:03:15Z")
> [@treis](#): > > I don’t deny that there were slaves that could pass as white. That’s a lot different than looking like Britney Spears or having white male ancestors back 10 generations. There were quite a few blond haired, blue eyed, fair skinned slaves. Blake’s essentially right on this one. They were always a minority of the slave population in the US, but they were not at all rare. [![](https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-l4Q0wrckUrs/TXvoQG_4TfI/AAAAAAAABOk/M-0zPk4bq30/s1600/Joan+Gage+White+Slave+children++1.jpg) ](https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-l4Q0wrckUrs/TXvoQG_4TfI/AAAAAAAABOk/M-0zPk4bq30/s1600/Joan+Gage+White+Slave+children++1.jpg) [![](http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-Xmd4vaQC9kc/T1fjmLNK8yI/AAAAAAAAB0E/gbO0EwxFKmc/s1600/Isaac+&+Rossa+2.jpg) ](http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-Xmd4vaQC9kc/T1fjmLNK8yI/AAAAAAAAB0E/gbO0EwxFKmc/s1600/Isaac+&+Rossa+2.jpg) [![](http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-uA1WubjWjEg/T1fiN594DgI/AAAAAAAABz0/hdsaXqIJ5OQ/s1600/theatlantic.com.jpg) ](http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-uA1WubjWjEg/T1fiN594DgI/AAAAAAAABz0/hdsaXqIJ5OQ/s1600/theatlantic.com.jpg) [![](http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Bpn2y0dXUWk/T1EYnc0zqHI/AAAAAAAABzs/DEOr3tLgI_w/s1600/white+slave+children.jpg) ](http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Bpn2y0dXUWk/T1EYnc0zqHI/AAAAAAAABzs/DEOr3tLgI_w/s1600/white+slave+children.jpg) ---
**Author:** ![md2000](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/73ab20/32.png) [@md2000](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/md2000)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2012, 4:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-how-were-slaves-and-free-people-told-apart/615244/56 "2012-03-17T16:40:16Z")
Depends what you mean by “quite a few” and “blonde”. Of course, the film of the day was more blue-sensitive, so I suspect all hair will show relatively black in those photos. It’s hard to tell skin tone; but passing as white for Spanish, Mexican, Italian, Armenian or other “swarthier” white types was a common staple of historical novels. I still suspect that “quite a few” was less than one in 100 that could pass as pure white. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2012, 6:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-how-were-slaves-and-free-people-told-apart/615244/57 "2012-03-17T18:32:34Z")
> [@Lemur866](#): > > Well, I’d agree that slavery was racially based in a sense. If we agree that race was defined socially and not by ancestry. Being black didn’t mean you were a slave, but being a slave meant you were black regardless of your ancestry. It’s true that being black didn’t automatically mean you were a slave. But there were people pushing in that direction. Their ideal (and it was widely shared) was that society would be divided into two distinct groups: black slaves and white free men, with no overlapping group in the middle. ---
**Author:** ![treis](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/bc79bd/32.png) [@treis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/treis)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2012, 4:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-how-were-slaves-and-free-people-told-apart/615244/58 "2012-03-18T04:00:08Z")
> [@Belowjob2.0](#): > > There were quite a few blond haired, blue eyed, fair skinned slaves. Blake’s essentially right on this one. They were always a minority of the slave population in the US, but they were not at all rare. > > [https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-l4Q0wrckUrs/TXvoQG\_4TfI/AAAAAAAABOk/M-0zPk4bq30/s1600/Joan+Gage+White+Slave+children++1.jpg](https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-l4Q0wrckUrs/TXvoQG_4TfI/AAAAAAAABOk/M-0zPk4bq30/s1600/Joan+Gage+White+Slave+children++1.jpg) > > [http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-Xmd4vaQC9kc/T1fjmLNK8yI/AAAAAAAAB0E/gbO0EwxFKmc/s1600/Isaac+&+Rossa+2.jpg](http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-Xmd4vaQC9kc/T1fjmLNK8yI/AAAAAAAAB0E/gbO0EwxFKmc/s1600/Isaac+&+Rossa+2.jpg) > > [http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-uA1WubjWjEg/T1fiN594DgI/AAAAAAAABz0/hdsaXqIJ5OQ/s1600/theatlantic.com.jpg](http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-uA1WubjWjEg/T1fiN594DgI/AAAAAAAABz0/hdsaXqIJ5OQ/s1600/theatlantic.com.jpg) > [http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Bpn2y0dXUWk/T1EYnc0zqHI/AAAAAAAABzs/DEOr3tLgI\_w/s1600/white+slave+children.jpg](http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Bpn2y0dXUWk/T1EYnc0zqHI/AAAAAAAABzs/DEOr3tLgI_w/s1600/white+slave+children.jpg) None of the people in those photos are blond. ---
**Author:** ![Sailboat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sailboat/32/461_2.png) [@Sailboat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sailboat)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2012, 7:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-how-were-slaves-and-free-people-told-apart/615244/59 "2012-03-19T19:54:16Z")
> [@Lemur866](#): > > The “one drop” rule made anyone who had any known black ancestors black. Well, that’s the point, isn’t it? **Blake** said there were white slaves and slavery wasn’t about being black. But it turns out that it WAS about being black, it’s just that the “one drop” rule made what constituted “black” not necessarily easily identifiable visually. That’s a very different argument. ---
**Author:** ![md2000](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/73ab20/32.png) [@md2000](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/md2000)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2012, 9:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-how-were-slaves-and-free-people-told-apart/615244/60 "2012-03-19T21:54:46Z")
> [@Lemur866](#): > > Well, I’d agree that slavery was racially based in a sense. If we agree that race was defined socially and not by ancestry. Being black didn’t mean you were a slave, but being a slave meant you were black regardless of your ancestry. There absolutely were slaves who looked as white as Britney Spears, but they were defined as black regardless of how they looked. White-looking freed slaves could sometimes integrate into white society even among people who knew their ancestry, that’s what happened with some of Jefferson’s children. In a racially sensistive society, i.e. much of the USA… Being partly black meant you were black unless you made it somewhere else, where they did not know that you had black ancestry, and also you were sufficiently light-skinned (and facial features were les obvious) that people accepted that you were not partly black. I assume people of white ancestry as slaves was tolerated less and less, as “slave” and “black” came to mean about the same thing in the southern USA. Plus, the same social attitude to slavery of your own race in Europe probably carried over to the colonies. The problem with slaves is they run away. The advantage of a separate race for slaves, is that they were obviously different. A white slave could run away and blend into society - they were less likely to be found, or turned in. There aren’t many tasks you can give a slave if you don’t want them educated, and working in the southern sun was not as good a fit for white people. Why buy a slave that could run away easily? etc. The problem was exacerbated as half the country became hostile to the concept and will assist any runaways. White slaves are a poor investment. So all the social and economic factors combine to make keeping white people enslaved difficult, while simplifying the use of a separate race as slaves. I presume there was some xenophobia prejudice involved too, where people “who look like me” were more likely to be treated as equals than property, freed when the owner died etc. Part of the question then was, did the law eventually follow fashion and codify that prejudice - did it eventually become illegal to sell or enslave or own white slaves before the civil war? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-how-were-slaves-and-free-people-told-apart/615244.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-how-were-slaves-and-free-people-told-apart/615244.md?page=4)