The Problem of Slavery in Christian America: An Ethical-Judicial History of American Slavery and Racism

by Joel McDurmon

The first arose in 1662, when the growing population of black slaves was suddenly accompanied by a growing number of mixed-race children. Under Common Law, the status of a child followed that of the father. Thus, the child of a free white male (whether the planter himself, a son, or a nearby freed white servant) and a black female slave would be free. The potential for a growing free “mixed”13 class troubled the Virginian elite in more than one way: slave mothers would be raising free children who would be considered as socially outcast as blacks, and yet as economically troublesome as the freed white indentures. Even more problematic, as such children would obviously be born out of wedlock, they would legally be considered bastards. This created two more problems. First, by law, illegitimate children were a burden to the State. Second, it opened the fathers of these children to probing investigation and possible prosecution: