The Free Negro In North Carolina PDF Download

Excerpt from The Free Negro in North Carolina, And, Some Colonial History of Craven County The most pathetic figure in North Carolina prior to the Civil War was the free negro. Hedged about with social and legal re strictions, he ever remained an anomaly in the social and polit ical life of the State. The origin of this class of people may be attributed to many sources, the most common of which are (1) cohabitation of white women and negro men, (2) intermarriage of blacks and whites, (3) manumission, (4) military service in the Revolution, and (5) immigration from adjoining States. As early as 17232 many free negroes, mulattoes and persons of mixed blood had moved into the Province and had intermarried with the white inhabi tants in contempt of the acts and laws in those cases pro vided. In the year 1715 in order to discourage intermarriage between white women and negro men, a penalty of 50 was imposed upon the' contracting parties, while clergymen and jus tices of peace were forbidden to celebrate such marriage under a like penalty.3 However regrettable it may be, it is certain that there were a few disreputable white women who had illegitimate children by negro men, and such children inherited the legal status of the mother. The laws of 17154 take cognizance of this fact by imposing a penalty on any white woman whether bond or free, who shall have a bastard child by any negro, mulatto or Indian. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.