of races is like the man who would bring about harmony in the feline world by tying together peaceful cats by their tails and hanging them over the clothesline.

In insisting on the ineradicable preference of each race for social intermingling and intermarriage within its own kind, I do not wish to be understood as implying that there is not very often developed out of this a race prejudice which is irrational and indicative of lack of human sympathy. It is likely to lead to disparagement of merit in other races than our own, to acts of hostility, to unfair methods in business competition and in all spheres of rivalry. A preference, or a selectiveness of any kind, which goes beyond what is absolutely necessary for the protection of racial integrity, and the domestic sanctuary, is the mark of a narrow mind and a cold heart.

CHAPTER 57

EXTENT OF AMALGAMATION

Decline of Lawful Marriage Shown by Statistics of Intermarriage-Excess of Number of Marriages between White Women and Negro Men over Number Between Negro Women and White Men-Inferior Character of the Whites and Blacks Who Intermarry-Marked Diminution of Illicit Intercourse between the Races

COMI

OMING now to the extent of amalgamation of the Negro and Caucasian in the United States, we find that cases of intermarriage and also of licentious intercourse are becoming more rare.

From the earliest times the marriage of Negroes with white persons in this country was considered highly undesirable, and in the Colonial period such marriage came to be prohibited by law in nearly every colony. As to the number of marriages between blacks and whites in Colonial times there are no statistics; but the references to such marriages in the records and literature of that period indicate that they were very rare, and aroused indignant protests from the white people. Such marriages as did take place in those early days seemed to have involved only the lowest class of whites. Williams, in his History of the Negro in America, referring to the intermarriage of some white women and Negro men, says: "Many of the women had been indentured as servants to pay their passage to this country, some had been sent as convicts, while still others had been apprenticed for a term of years."

"1

Brackett, in his study of the Negro in Maryland, refers to similar marriages of serving-women from England and Negro men.2

Edward B. Reuter, in his book, The Mulatto in the United States, says in regard to the Colonial period: "There seems to be absolutely no evidence of intermarriage of the mixed sort in which the white contracting party was not of the lowest and usually of a vicious class.

"But whatever little intermarriage may have taken place between the Negroes and servant class of whites in early colonial times, it de1 Vol. I, p. 240.

'P. 196.

creased to almost absolutely zero as the status of the Negro became fixed and better understood. The spirit of fellowship that at first existed between the slaves and the indentured servants, imported criminals, paupers, and prostitutes, gradually gave place to the feeling of bitter hatred that, throughout the days of slavery, characterized the relations of the 'poor whites' and the Negroes." "

E. R. Turner, in his study of the Negro in Pennsylvania, refers to the attitude of the people of that state toward intermarriage of blacks and whites as follows: "After a while a strong feeling was aroused, so that in 1821 a petition was sent to the Legislature, asking that mixed marriages be declared void, and that it be made a penal act for a Negro to marry a white man's daughter. In 1834 such a marriage provoked a riot at Columbia; while in 1838 the subject caused a vehement outburst in the Constitutional Convention then assembled. Three years. later a bill to prevent intermarriage was passed in the House, but lost in the Senate. From time to time thereafter petitions were sent to the Legislature, but no action was taken; the obnoxious marriages continuing to be reported, and even being encouraged by some extreme advocates of race equality. Nevertheless, what the law left undone was largely accomplished by public sentiment and private action. As time went on marriages of white people with Negroes came to be considered. increasingly odious, and so became far less frequent. When a case occurred, it was usually followed by swift action and dire vengeance. The fact that a white man was living with a Negro wife was one of the causes of the terrible riot in Philadelphia in 1849."

Since the Civil War and the emancipation of the Negroes, the statutes in the Northern states prohibiting intermarriages have been abolished. But the sentiment against intermarriage of whites and blacks is still sufficiently strong to render such unions very rare. In the Northern and Western states the numerical inferiority of the Negro population brings about an indifference on the part of white people to the few intermarriages which may take place.

Frederick Hoffman collected available data on the mixed marriages in the United States up to 1895; and his figures showed that marriages between whites and blacks were on the decline in every state where statistics on the subject had been collected. His investigation covered the marriage records of Michigan from 1874 to 1893; Rhode Island

'P. 132.

• Pp. 195-6.

from 1881 to 1893; Connecticut from 1883 to 1893, and the city of Boston from 1855 to 1890.5 Baker gives Boston figures to 1905.

In the West, where the number of mulattos is relatively greater than in the North or the South, the presumption is that the number of mixed marriages is also greater. Unfortunately the marriage records give no information as to the race, and there is no way of ascertaining the extent of intermarriage except by private observations and investigations. A recent study of the intermarriage of whites and Negroes made by a graduate student of the University of Minnesota, indicates that the number of such marriages is greater in the cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul than in any other cities of the United States. According to the opinion of a white woman who is the wife of a Negro there are about 200 cases of unions between whites and blacks in the two cities. The white women of such unions "are mostly Swedish or German, or otherwise foreign-born." The unhappy outcome of these unions, as brought out by the investigation, would lead one to think that they would decrease rather than increase."

Taking together the data furnished by Hoffman to 1895, and the available evidence since then, I think the conclusion is warranted that in this country lawful marriage between whites and blacks is on the decline.

The general character of the whites and blacks who have intermarried has been low.

"The few white women," says Bruce, "who have given birth to mulattoes have always been regarded as monsters; and without exception they belong to the most impoverished and degraded caste of whites, by X whom they are scrupulously avoided as creatures who have sunk to the level of the beasts of the field." 8

Hoffman made a study of thirty-seven cases of intermarriage of whites and blacks, eight of these cases being marriages of white men, to Negro women, and twenty-nine cases of white women to Negro men.

"Of the eight white men, four were lawfully married while the other four were living openly in concubinage. Three of the men were crim

"Race Traits and Tendencies of the American Negro, p. 200.

Hoffman also quotes statistics showing a decline of mixed marriages in the West Indies. Op. cit., p. 201.

'Hoffman, "Problem of Negro-White Intermixture and Intermarriage," Eugenics in Race and State, 1923, Vol. 2, p. 184.

The Plantation Negro, p. 53.

inals or under suspicion of being such; one man had killed another for insulting remarks concerning his negro wife, one killed his mistress in a fit of jealousy, one was stabbed and horribly burned by vitriol by his colored mistress, one killed his colored mistress by slow poison to obtain possession of her property, the ill-gotten gains from a house of ill-fame. The others were more or less outcasts. One was a saloonkeeper, one had deserted his family for his Negro mistress, two were men of good family but themselves of bad reputation.

"Of the twenty-nine women, only nineteen were lawfully married to the colored men with whom they were living, while ten lived in open concubinage. So far as my information goes only five of the nineteen were of foreign birth, one English, one German and three Irish. Of the nineteen that were married, four were known prostitutes, two were guilty of bigamy, four either sued for divorce or had deserted their husbands. Five were apparently of respectable parentage and living in content with their husbands; while for four the information is wanting. Of the ten who were not married, eight were known prostitutes, one was insane and only one was known to be the daughter of respectable parents.

"Of the twenty-nine colored men who married or lived with white women, only one, an industrious barber, was known to be of good character. Five were of fair repute; nine were idlers, loafers or drunkards; eleven were of proven criminal and anti-social tendencies; while for three the character could not be ascertained. Of the eleven criminals, two were murderers, three were thieves, three were guilty of bigamy, one was keeper of a house of ill-fame, while the last two were arrested for inhuman cruelty to their own or foster children. The result of the twenty-nine cases of race mixture prove that of the women, twelve were known prostitutes, three were of ill repute, charged in addition with cruelty and abuse of children, two were murdered by their colored husbands, one committed suicide, one became insane, two sued for divorce, two deserted their husbands, five were apparently satisfied with their choice, while for four the information could not be obtained. Thus out of twenty-nine instances only five gave any indications of not having been absolute failures, and of the five in only one instance is the proof clear that the marriage was a fair success.

"Comment on these cases is hardly necessary. They tend to prove that as a rule neither good white men nor good white women marry colored persons, and that good colored men and women do not marry white persons. The number of cases is so small, however, that a definite