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I'm from Mississippi Dutch. I majored in Poli Sci at Ole Miss in the 1970s. Woodward was pretty popular back then amongst the Poli Sci professors though oddly more amongst the liberals than others. Just shows how far we've come doesn't it?

Miscegenation which is still a term that defines racial inbreeding according to Websters has always been around but I don't think the prevelance that is so widely touted today as a fact of the antebellum South was necessarily completely true. I have observed that the Deeper South one goes the purer the blacks usually become. You will find much purer blacks in the Mississippi Delta than in Chicago from my perspective of observing. Which is odd I think considering that slavery was highest in the Deep South and tyhe Delta was literally teeming with plantations.

There is no doubt that some of Jefferson's close relatives had children with slaves and I believe Miss Hemmings was a product of this was she not? However I have yet to see conclusive proof that Jefferson sired any offspring with her to date contrary to popular perception.

Another thing. The influence of the KKK is widely overestimated by folks outside the South. I have only known one Southerner to have been a klansman in my entire life. The original klan was of course instrumental in resisitng reconstruction...no doubt, but the latter klan was quite widespread and hardly a peculiar Southern institution that contributed to "Southern Ignorance" for 3 more generations. The real power brokers in the South were the Dems and later on various uptown folks like the White Citizen's Council. The klan was mostly viewed as dangerous hicks by many and perhaps useful idiots by some. Today, I don't have to tell you that Klan activity at least appears more prevalent outside the South than within.

Culturally, Spainairds and Portugese and French slavemasters were much much more likely to interbreed with their slaves than their counterparts here or in the British West Indies. One only need travel to those regions and view the huge mulatto classes to ascertain that. Why that is....I'm not sure but I imagine it also plays into their different views on colonization strategy in general.

I should note though that there have historically been pockets of mulattos clustered around New Orleans, Memphis and Atlanta...and another community north of Mobile whose name I can't right now recall. I think these mulattos from quadroons to octoroons clustered together in their own communities in the south both before the WBTS as "freedmen" and later simply because many felt ostracized outside both spectrums. This war of shades is incredibly thick in Haiti and has been the biggest contributor to the past 200 years of pandemonium in that poor nation since it's "inception". Further a somewhat overlooked contribution to the dilution of the African gene pool here in the South has always been from the Indians. It was no secret that the Creeks were largely mullatos as were the Seminoles. I don't have the fact but I would argue that interbreeding between Indians and blacks is possibly the largest source of lighter skinned blacks historically. Ironically, this seems particularly true also in the Northeast tribes. Most of those casino Indians I see up there look more black than Indian...lol

Just my two cents...some from first hand observation and some admittedly anecdotal. The truth which is only a matter of curiosity is probably unattainable at this juncture.