Library  of  America,  New York,pp. About Thea DiGiammerino. With the option of legal marriage denied them, Creole women within plaçage entered into long-standing formalized relationships with white European men. No other racial or ethnic group is defined in this way, nor does any other nation rely upon this formula; the one-drop rule is definitively Black and characteristically American. One Drop Rule is a film put out by California Newsreel, a non-profit, social issue documentary film center. In her distinguished study of blacks and the law, Helen Catterall observes that by 1667 in Virginia, ”baptism ceased to be the test of freedom and color became the ‘sign’ of slavery: black or graduated shades thereof. However, this seemingly simple social order soon became complicated by the rampant increase in amalgamation—the mixing of the races. Given the shamelessly disproportionate amount of power and privilege assigned to whiteness, the lines between who counted as white and who did not had to be unquestionably clear. Davis, F. J. In Fact, They're as Popular as Ever. Zwischen 1619 und 1808 wurden von den europäischen Kolonialmächten bei einheimischen Sklavenhändlern etwa 6.500.000 Sklaven gekauft, nach Amerika verschifft und vor allem in der Karibik und Nordamerika eingesetzt. According to it, ”the term ‘white’ as used in the census report refers to persons understood to be pure blooded whites. One Drop Rule. The language was first used by the government in the Fourteenth Census in 1920 when the color line was redefined by the Census Bureau. Most Creoles did not consider themselves Black. They don't want any black in you. This led W. E. B. Essentially, if a white man were to impregnate a Black woman, the law took him off the hook; he did not have to support or even claim that child. Similarly, by defining Black as "inevitably Black," the One-Drop rule creates a psychological safety net for all non-Blacks at Blacks' expense. Telepolis hinterfragt die digitale Gesellschaft und ihre Entwicklung in Politik, Wirtschaft & Medien. Its discursive development was linked to debates about skin color and rights associated with inheritance. There, a multi-tiered system developed wherein whites held highest status and Blacks held lowest status, while the gens de couleur libre (free people of color), also known as Creoles of Color and more popularly referred to as Creoles, hovered loosely between the two in an intermediate position, enjoying the privileges of freedom since the beginning of French rule in 1718. To refer to children born of interracial sexual relationships as “Mulattos” pointed to the conviction that whites and Blacks were two distinct beings and the related belief that if they were to mix, their offspring would be sterile and thus useless. Although Creoles were not given the privileges afforded to whites, they were given many more privileges than were Blacks. While legally many Mixed-race individuals were considered white in many states at various points of time, socially most whites regarded anyone with any Black ancestry as Black. Catterall, H. T. Thus, among Creoles themselves, each of these subcategories represented jealous and fiercely guarded distinctions. Prior to 1785, a mulatto could own up to one half ”African blood.” With the 1785 law’s enactment, anyone having one quarter or more of African blood would be considered a Negro and presumed to be a slave. Thus, the system of plaçage flourished, in spite of legal sanctions. Virginia was the first state to outline a formulaic definition of race in its ban against interracial marriage. A “Mulatto” and a white produced a Quadroon or Quateron. Viele übersetzte Beispielsätze mit "one drop rule" – Deutsch-Englisch Wörterbuch und Suchmaschine für Millionen von Deutsch-Übersetzungen. In order to maintain white supremacy, whiteness had to remain “pure.” White anxieties about racial mixture were rooted in eugenics and scientific racism, both supposing that the white race was the superior race, that physical and mental traits were tied to heredity, and that racial mixing thus not only lowered human quality but further threatened the survival of the white race. The message was clear: No matter how white you may appear, if there is but one drop of Black blood in your lineage, you will be considered Black and treated accordingly. Du Bois (1986 [1897]) to opine that race ”is a vast family of human beings, generally of common blood and language, always of common history, traditions and impulses, who are both voluntarily and involuntarily striving together for the accomplishment of certain more or less vividly conceived ideals of life.” However, as English professor Teresa Zackodnik points out, ”For Du Bois, blood becomes a metaphor for political commitment, not the carrier of inherent racial traits; racial groups are not natural formations along heritable blood lines but a group of individuals sharing certain loyalties and a degree of common experience while pursuing shared economic, political, and philosophical goals” (2004: 28). He is the author of the memoir "Transparent." If you have any drop of black, you're wholly black and you're a second class citizen according to the white community . What exactly were “Mulattos”? Wie teuer ist der One drop rule? Some were successful enough to own their own “slaves.” Their very ability to work for wages, operate businesses, and receive inheritances was due to their racial and social approximation to whites. ), E. B. Excerpted from One Drop: Shifting the Lens on Race by Yaba Blay (Beacon Press, 2021). White fathers often acknowledged their “Mulatto” children, and many granted their children their freedom. One drop rule - Der Vergleichssieger unter allen Produkten. By constitutional amendments and voter registration rules, they disfranchisedmost … Accomplishing these two adjustments in the social order allowed white males to benefit from the eventual enactment of the one drop rule. The term “Creole,” from the Latin creare, means “to beget” or “create.” Creoles were indeed “created,” the result of generations of inter-mixing between Europeans (French and Spanish), Africans (enslaved and free), and Indigenous peoples. The multi-tiered racial classification system that created the Creole also created an elite class of people, many of whom were as financially secure as whites, if not more so. One Nation’s Deftnition. The general term used during the antebellum period to describe people of mixed racial heritage was “Mulatto.” Taken from the Portuguese and Spanish term mulato meaning “young mule,” the term reflects not only the disdain with which the referents were held but the way in which race was conceptualized at the time. And of course, this whole system encouraged the psychological and physical degradation of the mulatta, not to mention the degradation that was afforded her children for their ”condition.” Initially the practice and jurisprudence of deter mining blackness was a matter of observation and not blood content. Higginbotham, A. L. (1978) In the Matter of Color, Race, and the American Legal Process: The Colonial Period. In fact, the children became property and the slave holders could count them as capital value. Editor's note: Don Lemon anchors CNN Newsroom during weekend prime-time and serves as a correspondent across CNN's U.S. programming. In: Huggins, N. The one drop rule was a social construction that emerged discursively in US history. When segregation was practiced in the Southern United States a person that was even the smallest percentage black was simply considered black Whites approved of and often encouraged Creoles’ erection of and adherence to this “color line of privilege”—“this separation was encouraged by the whites as a means of dividing the Negroes and making it easier to control them. February's Best International Crime Fiction. Association for the Study of Negro Life and History, Washington, DC. Often possessing more white blood than [Negro], and quite often on good terms with and publicly recognized by their white relatives, most members of this third caste in Louisiana were reared to believe that they were a race apart from the [Negroes], who occupied the lowest stratum of society. (1968) Judicial Cases Concerning American Slavery and the Negro. Rather than being defined by the one-drop rule, Creoles were defined by the exact amount of Black ancestry they possessed. Instead of using the category “mulattoes,” the Bureau adopted the one drop rule. Simple. A negro was presumed to be a slave” (Catterall 1968: 57). Having a European-like phenotype—light skin, straight or loosely coiled hair, aquiline features, etc.—marked people elsewhere categorized wholly as Black as privileged, with the amount of privilege assigned based on how much white blood the person possessed and/or how much white blood it appeared that the person possessed. To Rush, the problem of skin color was in part a problem of blood. Instead of using the category “mulattoes,” the Bureau adopted the one drop rule. Creoles functioned as a buffer class that helped whites to maintain their dominant status and keep unmixed Blacks in their place. The responsibility of maintaining the race fell on the shoulders (and wombs) of Creole women. Conveniently, traditional English common law was upheld in these cases, and Black-descended children born to white women took the status of their Black fathers. Oceana Publications, New York. Having received the acknowledgement and favor of whites, Creoles emerged as an elite class, and thus, like whites, Creoles considered themselves superior to Blacks. At different times up until the 20th century, Indiana, Maryland, Missouri, Nebraska, North Carolina, North Dakota, and South Carolina all relied on a one-eighth rule, while Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Oklahoma, Tennessee, and Texas defined anyone with “any blood of the African race in their veins” as Black.