# Were There Many "White" Slaves in Antebellum America? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [November 4, 2005, 1:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/were-there-many-white-slaves-in-antebellum-america/329387 "2005-11-04T01:16:00Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Alan\_Smithee](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/2acd7d/32.png) [@Alan\_Smithee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alan_Smithee)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 2005, 9:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/were-there-many-white-slaves-in-antebellum-america/329387/21 "2005-11-04T21:52:14Z")
Boy oh boy. The idea that there would be a “truth” about one’s race that one would have to escape is shocking in this day and age, if not, unfortunately, surprising. I hope that boy can learn to appreciate all of who he is and find a community that can accept him as who he is. Such a community isn’t something any of us should have to seek out–it is our birthright. It is terribly sad that it is such a rare thing. ---
**Author:** ![Kalhoun](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/3bc359/32.png) [@Kalhoun](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kalhoun)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 2005, 10:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/were-there-many-white-slaves-in-antebellum-america/329387/22 "2005-11-04T22:31:12Z")
Question regarding the free blacks in the pre-Civil War south: If someone wanted to own them, could they? What would keep them from owning a free black person if he really wanted to own that particular guy? ---
**Author:** ![Omega\_Glory](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/7c8e57/32.png) [@Omega\_Glory](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Omega_Glory)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 2005, 11:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/were-there-many-white-slaves-in-antebellum-america/329387/23 "2005-11-04T23:13:33Z")
**Alan Smithee** I agree with you 100%. **Kalhoun** , in lots of areas, free blacks were issued “free papers” that listed their name, general description, and identified them as being freemen. People used to pass these papers around to help others escape from slavery. Now if you still wanted to own a particular person, and his papers went “missing,” it would have been difficult for him to prove that he wasn’t your runaway slave. Especially since the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 denied him the right to a trial and the right to testify. ---
**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:** [November 4, 2005, 11:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/were-there-many-white-slaves-in-antebellum-america/329387/24 "2005-11-04T23:58:13Z")
The Fugitive Slave Act also allowed anyone to take a black person before any judge and swear out an affidavit that the black person was a former slave who belonged to him and have him “restored” to his ownership. The victim was not allowed an opportunity to present any contrary evidence. ---
**Author:** ![Moirai](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/96bed5/32.png) [@Moirai](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Moirai)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2005, 12:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/were-there-many-white-slaves-in-antebellum-america/329387/25 "2005-11-05T00:02:32Z")
In a similar vein, we found a Cherokee ancestor in my extremely white family tree! I don’t know much about her yet, but I suppose she could have been passing, or the family simply never mentioned her ethnicity. ---
**Author:** ![Askia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/96bed5/32.png) [@Askia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Askia)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2005, 2:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/were-there-many-white-slaves-in-antebellum-america/329387/26 "2005-11-05T02:52:21Z")
> [@Guinastasia](#): > > Is this why you hear of so many people of mixed race “passing” as white? How exactly was that done, if people knew who your family was? The Anthony Hopkins movie, _The Human Stain_, touches on this a bit, as did that old movie _Pinky._ I also seem to recall an actual checklist of things to consider when passing in an old book – I’m paraphrasing, but the advice there was summed up as so: 1. Move Far. (West and North were preferred.) 2. Sever All Ties With Family and Childhood Friends. (So they don’t give you away.) 3. Come Up With A Convincing Story About Your Lack of Immediate Ancestry. 4. Identify With a Swarthy European Ethnicity. Spanish and Italian were favorites. 5. Do Not Move South to Large Cities, or To New Orleans, Baton Rogue or Charleston, SC. (The populations there are much more adept at discerning people who are “passing.”) 6. Minimize Racial Traits. Hats, wigs, wearing your hair short, keeping clean shaven, 7. Avoid The Sun. There was also a bit about watching one’s diction and the risks of having children who may be born significantly darker than you or your spouse, and warnings about socializing with other colored people who weren’t passing, and eating colored foods, and finding clerical jobs or professional careers that kept you indoors and out the sun. There’s at least one, maybe two maternal great uncles in my family who passed for white and dispappeared from the family in the 1920s. They left behind some sad and bitter people. ---
**Author:** ![monstro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ba9def/32.png) [@monstro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/monstro)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2005, 3:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/were-there-many-white-slaves-in-antebellum-america/329387/27 "2005-11-05T03:39:30Z")
The book _The Sweeter the Juice: A Family Memoir in Black and White_\* by Shirley Taylor Hazlip is a true account of a family’s legacy of “passing”. A mind-blowing story. > [@Askia](#): > > 1. Do Not Move South to Large Cities, or To New Orleans, Baton Rogue or Charleston, SC. (The populations there are much more adept at discerning people who are “passing.”) Back in segregation era, business owners would often employ “spotters”–black people who would inform management of customers who were trying to pass as white. ---
**Author:** ![Anne\_Neville](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Anne\_Neville](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Anne_Neville)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2005, 3:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/were-there-many-white-slaves-in-antebellum-america/329387/28 "2005-11-05T03:56:35Z")
> [@EJsGirl](#): > > In a similar vein, we found a Cherokee ancestor in my extremely white family tree! I don’t know much about her yet, but I suppose she could have been passing, or the family simply never mentioned her ethnicity. Same here- my mom told me, just before I got married, that my dad’s father was 1/8 Cherokee. I had no idea from looking at him. ---
**Author:** ![Kalhoun](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/3bc359/32.png) [@Kalhoun](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kalhoun)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2005, 12:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/were-there-many-white-slaves-in-antebellum-america/329387/29 "2005-11-05T12:08:15Z")
> [@Omega Glory](#): > > **Alan Smithee** I agree with you 100%. > > **Kalhoun** , in lots of areas, free blacks were issued “free papers” that listed their name, general description, and identified them as being freemen. People used to pass these papers around to help others escape from slavery. Now if you still wanted to own a particular person, and his papers went “missing,” it would have been difficult for him to prove that he wasn’t your runaway slave. Especially since the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 denied him the right to a trial and the right to testify. Interesting. Thanks for the information. ---
**Author:** ![zelie\_zelerton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/59ef9b/32.png) [@zelie\_zelerton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/zelie_zelerton)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2005, 2:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/were-there-many-white-slaves-in-antebellum-america/329387/30 "2005-11-05T14:23:02Z")
> [@alphaboi867](#): > > But even during slavery free blacks had nowhere near the rights of whites. And it should be noted that not all slaveowners were white either. Usually it was a free black who owned a relative, but couldn’t afford to pay the emacipation fees. But there were a handful of black plantation owners who cared more about more about profit than racial solidarity. Also Plessy (of Plessy vs Ferguson) was 1/8 black. He looked white. He was planted in a Whites’ Only car and the conductor was tipped off in advance. None of the other passengers suspected he was “black”. How would a person come to be able to buy another person but not be able to afford to emancipate them? I am assuming that emancipation fees were payable to the original owner of the slave but now it occurs to me that this might be an additional cost paid to the local government. In which case i can see how the extra money would be harder to pay. Would it have worked like that? ---
**Author:** ![Arjuna34](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/eb8c5e/32.png) [@Arjuna34](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Arjuna34)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2005, 3:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/were-there-many-white-slaves-in-antebellum-america/329387/31 "2005-11-05T15:22:51Z")
Was it legally possible for a 100% pure (by the definition of the times) white European-decendant to legally be a slave (rather than a time-limited indentured servitude)? Did the underlying law have any non-racial aspect to it (e.g. Roman slave law, where any race could be a slave)? Arjuna34 ---
**Author:** ![Freddy\_the\_Pig](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/a587f6/32.png) [@Freddy\_the\_Pig](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Freddy_the_Pig)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2005, 3:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/were-there-many-white-slaves-in-antebellum-america/329387/32 "2005-11-05T15:59:11Z")
> [@Arjuna34](#): > > Was it legally possible for a 100% pure (by the definition of the times) white European-decendant to legally be a slave (rather than a time-limited indentured servitude)? In general, no. For an exact answer you’d have to trace the laws of England and of each American colony concerning importation of slaves and servants. Here is a good [starting point](http://www.law.du.edu/russell/lh/alh/docs/virginiaslaverystatutes.html) listing some of the statutes of colonial Virginia. Note that laws restrict the term of indenture for imports who are “Christian, and of Christian parentage”, but not of “negroes, mulattoes, and persons of color”. (Note also that religion served as a proxy for race.) So if you tried to import a European slave, the law would set them free after a maximum indenture. ---
**Author:** ![Alan\_Smithee](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/2acd7d/32.png) [@Alan\_Smithee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alan_Smithee)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2005, 4:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/were-there-many-white-slaves-in-antebellum-america/329387/33 "2005-11-05T16:26:36Z")
> [@zelie zelerton](#): > > How would a person come to be able to buy another person but not be able to afford to emancipate them? > > I am assuming that emancipation fees were payable to the original owner of the slave but now it occurs to me that this might be an additional cost paid to the local government. In which case i can see how the extra money would be harder to pay. Would it have worked like that? In some states, it wasn’t even legal to emancipate a slave. The Methodist church at the time split (like many denominations) into northern and southern branches shortly before the Civil War. The reason was that the General Conference forbade bishops from owning slaves and wanted to remove a prominant southern bishop who had inherited slaves through marriage and was kept from imancipating them by the laws of his state (one of the Carolinas, as I recall). ---
**Author:** ![Arjuna34](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/eb8c5e/32.png) [@Arjuna34](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Arjuna34)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2005, 4:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/were-there-many-white-slaves-in-antebellum-america/329387/34 "2005-11-05T16:39:07Z")
> [@Freddy the Pig](#): > > In general, no. For an exact answer you’d have to trace the laws of England and of each American colony concerning importation of slaves and servants. Here is a good [starting point](http://www.law.du.edu/russell/lh/alh/docs/virginiaslaverystatutes.html) listing some of the statutes of colonial Virginia. Note that laws restrict the term of indenture for imports who are “Christian, and of Christian parentage”, but not of “negroes, mulattoes, and persons of color”. (Note also that religion served as a proxy for race.) So if you tried to import a European slave, the law would set them free after a maximum indenture. Thanks, that’s a great link. I thought this section was interesting: > [@](#): > > XI. And for a further christian care and usage of all christian servants, Be it also enacted, by the authority aforesaid, and it is hereby enacted, That no negros, mulattos, or Indians, although christians, or Jews, Moors, Mahometans, or other infidels, shall, at any time, purchase any christian servant, nor any other, except of their own complexion, or such as are declared slaves by this act: And if any negro, mulatto, or Indian, Jew, Moor, Mahometan, or other infidel, or such as are declared slaves by this act, shall, notwithstanding, purchase any christian white servant, the said servant shall, ipso facto, become free and acquit from any service then due, and shall be so held, deemed, and taken: And if any person, having such christian servant, shall intermarry with any such negro, mulatto, or Indian, Jew, Moor, Mahometan, or other infidel, every christian white servant of every such person so intermarrying, shall, ipso facto, become free and acquit from any service then due to such master or mistress so intermarrying, as aforesaid. It seems the default towards blacks (and Indians?) was to push them into slavery, while the default towards others was to set them free, eventually. It’s interesting to compare this type of system to the ancient types (e.g. ancient Rome), where race (or the pretense of religion) wasn’t really the primary issue. Arjuna34 ---
**Author:** ![Guinastasia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guinastasia/32/5751_2.png) [@Guinastasia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guinastasia)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2005, 6:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/were-there-many-white-slaves-in-antebellum-america/329387/35 "2005-11-05T18:43:22Z")
Thanks, **Askia**. That’s just so incredibly sad. ---
**Author:** ![Mehitabel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/8797f3/32.png) [@Mehitabel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mehitabel)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2005, 6:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/were-there-many-white-slaves-in-antebellum-america/329387/36 "2005-11-05T18:52:33Z")
My aunt has found the contract by which the first ancestor of mine in America (a French Huguenot FWIW) “sold himself” into indentured servitude for seven years in late 17th-century Massachusetts. It was to a relative of his brother’s wife and he not only seems to have survived but flourished, since he married a granddaughter of somebody who came over on the Mayflower and started a fine family of New England swamp Yankees (lots of things like hills and ponds named after us but no money ☹ ) So, not a slave, but certainly not a free man by our standards. BTW, I read “Puddn’head Wilson” in HS too and found it to be the strongest indictment of slavery since “Uncle Tom’s Cabin”. Rare to find a slavery story that made the white kids in the class feel as viscerally rotten as the black kids. ---
**Author:** ![Dorjan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dorjan/32/12440_2.png) [@Dorjan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dorjan)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2005, 11:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/were-there-many-white-slaves-in-antebellum-america/329387/37 "2005-11-05T23:31:13Z")
Hmm, Omega Glory, if you don’t mind, could you post a link to a picture of your relative in question? And Askia, could you do the same for your uncles? It would be very interesting to see what some people consider passing for “white”. In my experience, no matter how light someone’s skin,their eye color or how straight their hair (usually artificially), there are certain features that are always a dead giveaway. ---
**Author:** ![zelie\_zelerton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/59ef9b/32.png) [@zelie\_zelerton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/zelie_zelerton)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2005, 11:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/were-there-many-white-slaves-in-antebellum-america/329387/38 "2005-11-05T23:36:39Z")
Mehibatel would you be able to scan that document onto your PC and post it? Or give us an idea of what it said? It sounds fascinating ---
**Author:** ![zelie\_zelerton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/59ef9b/32.png) [@zelie\_zelerton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/zelie_zelerton)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2005, 11:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/were-there-many-white-slaves-in-antebellum-america/329387/39 "2005-11-05T23:39:42Z")
Mehitabel even :smack: ---
**Author:** ![Askia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/96bed5/32.png) [@Askia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Askia)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2005, 1:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/were-there-many-white-slaves-in-antebellum-america/329387/40 "2005-11-06T01:59:19Z")
> [@Dorjän](#): > > Hmm, > Omega Glory, if you don’t mind, could you post a link to a picture of your relative in question? And Askia, could you do the same for your uncles? > > It would be very interesting to see what some people consider passing for “white”. In my experience, no matter how light someone’s skin, their eye color or how straight their hair (usually artificially), there are certain features that are always a dead giveaway. These aren’t my uncles, but rather my maternal great-granduncles. There aren’t a lot of photographs of my family surviving from that time: this was poor black farming/sharecropping communities in the South Carolina midlands. Most of those photographs, if they’ve survived at all from moves and fires, have been scattered among my grandaunts and uncles and their kids. I have seen my aged great-uncles and as a child considered them tanned old white folks until a sharply worded correction from my Mama taught me otherwise. One of my distant cousins, William, has lived in Queens for years and years is a dead ringer for actor [Jon Polito.](http://x-stream.fortunecity.com/fleetst/71/jon_polito.gif) With curly (so-called “good”) hair and a tan. But if he bleached his skin, avoided the sun, cut his beard and hair like I’ve seen on Filipinos and doesn’t lapse into his Aiken dialect, he could likely pass as a Frenchman or Italian, easy. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/were-there-many-white-slaves-in-antebellum-america/329387.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/were-there-many-white-slaves-in-antebellum-america/329387.md?page=3)