WI: Southerners did not adopt one-drop rule?
- Thread starter Anawrahta
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I think they'd likely be categorized as a mixed race middle caste similar to the Pardos in Brazil or Creoles in French Louisiana.
If happens you will end with a society not disssimilar to Brazil or LatinAmerica in general, with colorism and not much racism but a lot of Classism. Now if this is possibld I don't belive so, there is something in the English pattern colonialism, be USA, Australia, India, Canada or South Africa, that increment, and even create, the racist elements in the society they dominate. There is a reason you see that the more racist societies in the cololonial world come from english speaking colonies
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1. The one drop rule defined as white racial purity did not exist in the antebellum south
2. White paternity as a basis of white identity already existed in africa anand amongst the earliest Luso-African populations, it was not accepted by Europeans
3. Zanj is not black as a whole, Zanj are specifically the southeastern african littoral populations. Of those with say Persian/Shirazi and Arab roots later known as Swahili the rest of the muslim world still called them black such as Ibn Battuta
Colorism in multiracial Latin American societies is racism in that blackness and proximity to blackness is perceived as a negative at its basis.
Creoles are not the mixed race population term prior to the very recent era or perhaps after 1897 (Jim Crow laws become formalized). They were referred to as Mulatto/a/x and its French-Castilian equivalent. Meanwhile, the general European populace born in the state were referred to as Creole, similar to the Spanish imperial conception of Criollo (Louisiana racial policy is derived from the Spanish systematic). Today in the study of Louisiana and in the school system therein, the students are taught using the terms, Creole and Creole of Color, in reference to respecting the recent innovation in terminology among many of the African diaspora in how they term themselves, but recognizing too that in history, the term generally referred to the European ancestry (non Irish, Cajun, Sicilian and sometimes German, these were the European groups typically 'othered' by the racial viewpoints in 19th century Louisiana, especially prior to 1870) borne and raised in Louisiana or the Caribbean. African populaces were referred to as the N word (except in French, you may look this term up) or simply as Black (and its other language equivalents in Louisiana).
To the question, 'one drop' becoming not the standard begs a different question. Such as, what is the new standard for Creole or white? Does it become 25% or would it be 15%? This is important. I doubt that it could be made to be 50% as an accepted ratio for becoming white, it would require several tls to diminish the notions of white supremacy en vogue and change the nature of the wider Spanish colonial structure. However, it could be that the new custom becomes 20% and below is considered White, while 25%, the so-called 'castizo' becomes a class that is accepted for marriage and non-slave sexual relation and thus creates more so-called white people. While the Mulatto and wholly-African remain in their position but are more visually and legally stratified so as to depict the new nature of race relations in the Southern US.
True, the colorism that exists in much of the former Spanish or Portuguese colonies depicts a racial view and stance upon Indigenous and African communities, not a dislike of a color. Hence the word 'colorism' does a disservice to the actual meaning of what is at play in these lands.
The existence of an Anglophone "gens du couleur" caste would be a significant new wrinkle in American race relations, but IMO the American South in particular was overdetermined to have the sort of one-drop strict segregation we saw IOTL. Both blacks and whites survived in the South at a greater rate vis-a-vis the sugary hellscape of the Caribbean and Brazil -- whites due to less tropical disease, blacks due to the fact that Southern plantations by and large lacked the labor-intensive sugar cultivation that gave Brazil and the Caribbean cash cows a 60% death rate for slaves. Still hell on earth, but slightly less hell on earth than the mercury-poisoned mines of Spanish Peru or the "tropical Babylons" the Jesuits decried in Brasil.
As we saw in the IOTL Raj and other colonies, the presence of white women and a larger white society leads to the eventual decline and banning of interracial marriages and miscegenation in general. In both British India and the DEIC, the 19th-century medical innovations that allowed European administrators to bring their families over led almost immediately to the decline of local Eurasian marriages and relationships that had previously been the norm.
The English colonies in North America, even before factoring this in, had a larger percentage of white familial immigration than the other colonies in the Americas and elsewhere, where immigration rates as a whole were much lower or gender-skewed and spread out (in the case of Portugal). The successful recreation of the white Protestant social structure precluded the grey areas that allowed for the creation of a "gens du couleur" caste that we saw elsewhere in the Americas.
Furthermore, English law didn't have the loophole that the children of a free father would be free, which led to the multiracial children of slave owners being a) sold across the South during the demographic transition in late American slavery from the Upper South to the Deep South and b) the general reintegration of multiracial slave children and black-white mixed-race Americans in general into the wider black population. In the British Caribbean, similar laws and social standards led to similar strict standards of social segregation vis-a-vis the color-scale gradation of Brazil, the French Carribean, and the Spanish colonies (although it should be noted that Spain had an entire codified system of terms relating to the exact racial admixture of residents in Mexico and elsewhere.)
As we saw in the IOTL Raj and other colonies, the presence of white women and a larger white society leads to the eventual decline and banning of interracial marriages and miscegenation in general. In both British India and the DEIC, the 19th-century medical innovations that allowed European administrators to bring their families over led almost immediately to the decline of local Eurasian marriages and relationships that had previously been the norm.
The English colonies in North America, even before factoring this in, had a larger percentage of white familial immigration than the other colonies in the Americas and elsewhere, where immigration rates as a whole were much lower or gender-skewed and spread out (in the case of Portugal). The successful recreation of the white Protestant social structure precluded the grey areas that allowed for the creation of a "gens du couleur" caste that we saw elsewhere in the Americas.
Furthermore, English law didn't have the loophole that the children of a free father would be free, which led to the multiracial children of slave owners being a) sold across the South during the demographic transition in late American slavery from the Upper South to the Deep South and b) the general reintegration of multiracial slave children and black-white mixed-race Americans in general into the wider black population. In the British Caribbean, similar laws and social standards led to similar strict standards of social segregation vis-a-vis the color-scale gradation of Brazil, the French Carribean, and the Spanish colonies (although it should be noted that Spain had an entire codified system of terms relating to the exact racial admixture of residents in Mexico and elsewhere.)
This is actually a historical revision one oft mentioned by White Lousiana Creoles towards the rest of the community.
Inca Garcilaso de la Vega in Comentarios Reales de los Incas (1609) wrote "
Its use I would argue existed even further back with populations born in Cabo Verde who were lusophone white identified peoples (but whom people today in the West would call black) that continued to spread the term as they migrated to the New World as both free and enslaved.
Whiteness was based off of social acceptance and alignment with white communities the acceptance or rejection beung based on the numbers of white people and the mixed race persons wealth, status or talents.
George D Tillman at the South Carolina Constitution Convention 1895
Mixed Race recognition existed in the United States, mulatto status only ended in 1940 census and the social reality of a mostly european derived American Black upper middle class closely aligned with equally wealthy white families from the 17th and 18th century shows this.
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@Revachah I was completely unaware of the Creole topic.
However, regarding the second topic, are you claiming that an ancestry of some kind has no bearing what-so-ever? My position was not that there was a strict code by which ‘white le was defined. Only that there was thresholds by which even the proximities you speak of may be achieved. Do you not agree with this?
However, regarding the second topic, are you claiming that an ancestry of some kind has no bearing what-so-ever? My position was not that there was a strict code by which ‘white le was defined. Only that there was thresholds by which even the proximities you speak of may be achieved. Do you not agree with this?
One drop rule literally did not exist. Between 1910 and 1927 only 10 states adopted ODR policies. The social reality vs the working laws before the 20th century laws differed.
Legal and or social whiteness was attained in a myriad of ways and the frameworks were not rooted in equations.
Did they? I've never seen any evidence that the French, German, Belgian, etc., colonies were noticeably better than the British ones in this regard.
(And regarding the specific example of South Africa, the Boers were generally more racist than the English.)
You are avoiding my questions and genuine interest. Forget my questions on this topic.
I'm not avoiding anything, clarify your questions.
Im stating your views of racial history are anachronistic and not factually based so your views of a potential ATL is much more stringent than it was historically.
In my traditional discourse, it is expected for a question to be a reciprocal relation. That is, whence questions are given, there is an attempt by which a receiver seeks to gather nuance of questions and also to take into account what said person is asking. Do take this into consideration, rather than demanding of others particular mechanical questions, that are tailored to you. I am under no obligation to write according to the standards that make your answers easy, especially considering the hostile tones you oft-take.
However, to gift you a set of affirmations to make matters clear for you; to clarify so that you may genuinely engage in conversation:
1. My point was never that an ‘ODR’ policy existed. I agree with you in this point.
2. As I stated, strict conceptions such as racial admixture were not affirmed. That is, there was not necessarily legal lines drawn at a certain percentage. My opinion is not that ‘white’ begins at this or that line as an absolute.
3. We agree, the conception of ‘white’ and its identification begins with association and so forth. I agreed with your prior quotes and opinion rendered.
However, with these affirmations given allowance may be given to opine/render a question:
When we discuss the racial and cultural defining of groups as ‘white,’ do we say that there is no threshold of mixture at all?
For instance, as I read your points, that ‘white’ as a construct was define based solely upon social alignment and acceptance by the white community whence taking into account the capital power of the group in question? Considering this, is your view, that in 1900, peoples of primary African descent could be defined as ‘white’ regardless of their appearance?
Remembering this topic, I am reminded of the account of Booker T.Washington. Wherein he described that the means by which white train attendants decided who went to which section of the train, was based solely upon their appearance. A particular man he claimed, was sitting within the ‘black’ section of said train and was informed by the train attendant that the person should move to the ‘white’ section as he was white. The man thus protested, that he was not white and need not move sections. The attendant disagreed with this man and insisted he was white based upon his visual skin tone and features. Whence the man, according to Washington, took off his shoes and this apparently proves to the attendant that the person was not white. -This was from his book, ‘Up From Slavery’
I bring this point up, so as to ponder a question alongside you, why would the attendant care about the appearance of the person in question had the issue to only be alignment in a societal and cultural sense. Why even would the southern attendant question him on his seating? As surely a person would know their social status and standing before hand and thus the attendant would simply assume by his seating, he was correct in his racial choice and placement.
So, I arrive at my original question. When associating to whiteness, was there not, in your opinion, some level of internalized mixture at least upon exterior features that the people did not take into account before whiteness was applied? Or was the application totally without a visual consideration?
I hope that this clarifies my question. The question is genuine, I do not wish to have these silly forum type battles with you or anyone.
The white history of North Africa from European slaves has just vanished from popular history despite the (insert preferred number) of Europeans taken into slavery in North Africa over generations. It was more acknowledged in the Ottoman Empire in the Eastern Mediterranean. It is also mixed with issues of religious adherence. Might one apply the same criteria but substituting Christianity in the USA? To carry it across fully there would have to be a religious ruling that enslaving Christians was forbidden.
Then there would be an incentive to not convert the slaves, which would go against the "make disciples of all nations" mission of Christianity.