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It was certainly the case. The Autobiography of Mark Twain recounts an incident where a man made sexual advances to a shy black slave working in a restaurant. He notes that the man was well within his rights to require sex from the girl, but it was in poor taste. I'm sure that keeping teenage boys out of the slave quarters was impossible, but I'm also sure that many black women were raped by other slaves. It was an ugly time in history, and slavery is an ugly institution.
There were also more stable relationships, like Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemmings, often with the knowledge of, or even collusion with, the lady of the manor. It was a sexually repressed era, and often the only birth control available to women was to avoid having sex with their husbands.
The process of racial mixing accelerated in the 20th century. Black women in particular would rather their daughters look like Halle Berry than Whoopi Goldberg, and black men see a white wife as a status symbol. When anti-miscegenation laws were repealed in the 1950s, race mixing really got rolling.
Some good points.
I wouldn't exactly call Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemmings a "stable" relationship, though. As she was his slave and wasn't legally free to refuse him, I wouldn't call their relationship anything but ongoing rape. Not to mention that Jefferson was sleeping with multiple women at the time, which would also take away from any other argument of stability.
But black-white racial mixing, while accelerated in the 20th Century, was and is still fairly low when you look at the black population as a whole in this country. In 1960, there were 51,000 black/white marital couples. This number gradually but steadily increased to 395,000 black/white marriages in 2002. No, this doesn't account for non-married couples, but, even when accounting for that (which is more of an issue only in the last 30-40 years or so), we are still talking about a fairly small percentage of couples among the eligible black and white populations. Simply put, and not that you claimed otherwise, the number of interracial relationship in the U.S. post repeal of anti-miscegenation laws (and, note, even when these laws were repealed, there was still a powerful stigma against interracial marriage throughout much of the country) wouldn't explain why the average black American has 15-20% European ancestry. On the flip side, while many black women would rather their daughters look like Halle Berry than Whoopi Goldberg (but that's a bad comparison . . . after all, I think that most black women would rather their daughters look like Lauryn Hill, a beautiful, dark-skinned black woman, than Whoppi Goldberg), the overwhelming majority of black women, to this date, are not repoducing with white men. No, they are reproducing with black men, most of whom have between 15-20% European ancestry as a large result of a shameful period of our past.
Last edited by prospectheightsresident; 05-08-2016 at 04:01 PM..
I'm not denying European admixture, I'm saying that's it's not from recent mixing. Nobody has a white grandparent. That scenario almost doesn't exist before the last generation.
Okay, I admitted it wasn't typical, but "nobody has a white grandparent" is just not true. Just google interracial couples during segregation.
Quote:
A typical AA can find no paper trail to any actual white people irrespective of how much admixture they have. All European bloodlines are behind the wall of slavery.
I didn't say otherwise. I specifically said "The typical African-American may not be able to name a white ancestor but that doesn't mean they don't have one."
Quote:
The studies do not include biracial people. Only people with two AA parents were included in the studies I read, and the percentages were 18-20% average, not 25.
The study I posted says the data comes from people who tested at 23andMe and agreed to have their results included in this study. They establish who is included in the report by how the testers self-identify. If the tester reports themselves as African-American, they will be included in the study regardless of whether they are bi-racial or not. And the study says people who are self-reported as African-American are on average 24% (I never said 25%) European:
Yes, but I don't need to take a test. I'm not denying admixture. In my research I've come across many mulatto ancestors on all sides, but never a single white person. Mulattos had two mulatto parents, or one black and one mulatto parent. The earliest generations were all slaves.
I never denied this. Like I said, I was just offering an alternate example because another person didn't want to believe that intermixing happened during slavery.
^^^^
I disagree most African Americans have 20% or so European ancestry on average, this means that even back then men were doing stuff with their female slaves and vice versa, just look at what a quick google search finds from people who have the ancestry of thousands probably millions of African Americans and the European DNA is not a small as most think, although I will admit many mixed race blacks who are 25% white or even 50% identify as black or mixed.
Also for a substantial time, from the early 1600's to the early 1800's, the labor of early colonial America was a mix of 'excess' white Irish and 'unwanted excess' British laborers who usually arrived with an indenture, and black africans who often were also indentured, and prisoners or war from places like Scotland who lost in rebellions. Little difference were made between them, their purpose their labor to build the new towns and farms, and serve the upper classes. As survivors were freed, they found little chance to make a life for themselves, especially in the early colonies, and they presented a large and dissatisified problem. Bacon's rebellion in the late 1600's first suggested dividing the mob so they might turn on each other over the local gentry. But still, it took almost a century before the color line became cemented and word of the reality of bonded labor in the americas slowed the supply from Britan. Even then, convict labor was cheap and the sellers had already been paid for their cargo by the courts. Convicts were not admitted to the ranks of more skilled labor, and tended to work the hard basic labor. The exception might be if they were literate as tutors were always needed.
During this time labor was largely housed together of any color or origion and racial mixing was not uncommon. That black man named Murphy may have origionally picked up his Celtic dna way back then as well as it being from multiple sources.
"-otz" is most likely someone from what is now western Poland, or far east Germany, an area formerly mixed Poles and Germans, and later on, Prussians. The -otz is a Germanized version of the "-oc" ending, pronounced "awtz" as in "Kroc" which is a Polish surname, most common in the western part of Poland, but still rather common and found anywhere in the country. Same surname with both a German and Polish spelling.
It's kind of like Polish -ski turns to -ske in NE Germany (formerly Prussia, where there were many Germanized Slavs).
"-itz" ending denotes someone almost certainly of Jewish origin, in a Polish - speaking area (it is the Yiddish form of "-icz").
"-ertz" is not an "-ending" per se, but part of a word or name. If I'm not mistaken, "Hertz" is simply a German name with no outside modification.
Really good info, -Nine. Makes perfect sense about the -otz endings. About "-itz", though--I've been wondering about this for awhile. OK, so Yiddish turned the Slavic "-ich" names into "-itz", that makes sense, thank you for that. But "-its" is also found in Old Prussian surnames (the afore-mentioned "Kapernits" - Copernicus in Latin). So we can't make a hard-and-fast rule. When I ran into that, naturally, the Jewish surnames came to mind, and I didn't know what to make of the similarity, but your explanation clears it up.
After the Civil War, many freed slaves took the last name of their former owner, whether or not there was any "blood" relation.
They also chose last names of famous people at the time like Washington or Jefferson, who aren't very common among white people. When a slave was free, it was popular that he took the last name Freeman or he could take common surnames at the time like Smith, Johnson, Brown or Williams.
Also for a substantial time, from the early 1600's to the early 1800's, the labor of early colonial America was a mix of 'excess' white Irish and 'unwanted excess' British laborers who usually arrived with an indenture, and black africans who often were also indentured, and prisoners or war from places like Scotland who lost in rebellions. Little difference were made between them, their purpose their labor to build the new towns and farms, and serve the upper classes. As survivors were freed, they found little chance to make a life for themselves, especially in the early colonies, and they presented a large and dissatisified problem. Bacon's rebellion in the late 1600's first suggested dividing the mob so they might turn on each other over the local gentry. But still, it took almost a century before the color line became cemented and word of the reality of bonded labor in the americas slowed the supply from Britan. Even then, convict labor was cheap and the sellers had already been paid for their cargo by the courts. Convicts were not admitted to the ranks of more skilled labor, and tended to work the hard basic labor. The exception might be if they were literate as tutors were always needed.
During this time labor was largely housed together of any color or origion and racial mixing was not uncommon. That black man named Murphy may have origionally picked up his Celtic dna way back then as well as it being from multiple sources.
Excellent perspective on the early history of labor in the colonies. IIRC, something like 2/3 of the people who came to the British colonies in the 17th century were indentured or convicts.
^^^
In this case it was more likely a entertainment performer's motive not so much an attempt to hide some type of heritage. So many actors have changed their names it's almost standard practice. The news reader guy on our local TV station uses a fake name.
Jon Stewart adopted his middle name as his stage name because he was estranged from his father.
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IIRC, something like 2/3 of the people who came to the British colonies in the 17th century were indentured or convicts.
