There are older histories out there of the small towns of our nation that tell more about us as a people then do the history books of the progressives. One example: “History of Scituate, Mass, From Its First Settlement to 1831” by Samuel Deane. Page 314: “JAMES NEWELL, an African Slave of Mary White, 1690. Mary White had a farm in Conihassett, one mile west of Merritt’s brook, and she had the singular fancy to marry her slave. Tradition speaks of him as a respectable man. Their children, Joshua, James, Hezekiah, and four daughters, born from 1691 to 1706. James, Jr. married Abigail Nichols 1739, and left sons, James, Levi, Joshua and Daniel, born from 1740 to 1752. They have descendants in Scituate.” Having found this info, I was interested in what happened to their descendants, as we aren’t taught that this type of marriage existed back then. I discovered that two of their grandsons, married sisters, who would be my 6 or 7 times great aunts of English descent. They moved to and had descendants in N.H. and Maine. I am left wondering if their descendants identify as black or white? And if they identify as white do they know about their early black/Africn American ancestry?
Up North different and in the colonies, the condition of the mulatto child followed after the mother so they might have been classified as free at least. I know such marriages existed because I know a lot of history of interracial marriage and otherwise in the USA back in the day and while a lot of it was pretty bad (illegal for my parents to marry in at least sixteen states in the US till 1967) it’s not all 100% bad as certain people would have us believe. Most likely they didn’t know or “passed” and kept it a secret you can understand why.