So, as it says on the tin. What's the first chance for a non-white woman to become a First Lady? The earliest chance I can think of would be if Martin Van Buren died in office, his veep, Richard Johnson had a African-American wife.
Jefferson acknowledges his relationship/children with Sally Hemmings and marries her, much to the scandal of the early Republic.
So, as it says on the tin. What's the first chance for a non-white woman to become a First Lady? The earliest chance I can think of would be if Martin Van Buren died in office, his veep, Richard Johnson had a African-American wife.
So, as it says on the tin. What's the first chance for a non-white woman to become a First Lady? The earliest chance I can think of would be if Martin Van Buren died in office, his veep, Richard Johnson had a African-American wife.
So, as it says on the tin. What's the first chance for a non-white woman to become a First Lady? The earliest chance I can think of would be if Martin Van Buren died in office, his veep, Richard Johnson had a African-American wife.
I think his wife died before he was VP though.
I'm also pretty sure he never actually freed her.
(Though to be fair, calling her "African-American" when she was 7/8ths white is a bit much)
Indeed but in this case we have to worry about the perceptions of race held by 19th centuary Americans in order to answer the posters question.Race is all about perception, not genetic reality.
Indeed but in this case we have to worry about the perceptions of race held by 19th centuary Americans in order to answer the posters question.
She would be considered African American just like Homer Plessy (who was also 7/8 white).
I'd like to know this too. I plan to have a TL in which the soldier of fortune Frederick Townsend Ward survives his time as a general during the Taiping Rebellion and then moves back to America to become POTUS in 1896. The thing is that he married a chinese women while in China. She died soon after he was killed in battle in OTL but that can be butterflied away. My problem is that I'm not sure if the American public would approve of electing a POTUS with a non-white first lady let alone a foreign born one.
She would indeed. It didn't matter how 'white' you looked, you could look like a viking, but if you had one drop of black blood, you were considered to be black. Ridiculous, but there it was.
If Van Buren had died in office, then she becomes first lady by default. There would certainly be some grumbling, especially in the south, but nothing that would derail the presidency.
A bachelor presidenty/widowed president attains office, marries someone-anyone- who happens to not be white.
If we consider Latino not to be white, then it becomes ridiculously easy. Believe it or not early United States loved the Spanish, a bit less than either the French or the British, but the Spanish assisted America in the war of independence [taking Florida for their troubles] and their popularity didn't wane with the French's. Even with troubles over Florida. It took a while for the United States to sour to Spain.
Pardon me if I'm not mistaken, but does Spain rule over the entirety of Latin America at this time and most of the people being regarded as Spaniards? Latino is a relatively modern invention used to create an artificial difference between northern/western Europeans and southwestern Europeans [back when everyone was obsessed with cataloging races to the point where each sub division of a nation had one, often substituting nationalism for it]. Depending on who you talk to Spain and Portugal is included alongside Cuba and Brazil, or not.Pardon me if I'm mistaken, but doesn't the term Latino only refer to Latin Americans?