[jeffersondem]

“There was an economic rationale behind immoral behavior.”

That is an interesting comment.

I have read “the love of money is the root of all evil.”

Is that what you mean?

[Albion Wilde]

I guess I meant that if the large plantation owners could not import any more slaves legally, it might have provided a wicked man an excuse for becoming sexually involved or predatory with slave women, hoping to produce more children, who also could be compelled to work. As an earlier post noted, light-skinned slave children who resembled the master may have received more favorable treatment, as well.

One thing that bothers me about the current racialists' claims that blacks who find any white blood when they get their DNA kit results rush to claim that their foremother was raped. While this is undoubtedy true in slave times in many cases, it is also common sense that there were slave women who could angle for favorable conditions by sleeping with the boss, or who were actually mutually attracted with the owner or one of his sons or white hired hands. Then as now, the illicit aspect added to the excitement of a forbidden love affair.

There were also some mixed-race couples who discovered a true passion and found ways to live together as man and wife. A past president of Georgetown University in the late 1800s was the child of an Irish-American father who had once owned his mother, a slave woman. The owner found a way to set his wife and children free; and this particular son became a Catholic priest and eventually, head of GU.