of the eighteenth century, the attitude toward interracial sex underwent a
reversal: whereas earlier white men had enjoyed relations with dark-skinned
women, suddenly there was a perceived threat that white women might be
violated by dark-skinned men. In India, as in America at about the same
time, whites who engaged in sexual relations with “people of color” began to
risk public censure: forms of apartheid became the norm. Most of what is
known about sexual unions in America, therefore, is inferred from the large
number of mulattoes mentioned in documents, and from occasional court
records.
“Bastardy lists” suggest that not only the lust of masters and their sons
produced mulatto children. Another cause was the custom, already com-
mon in the seventeenth century, of mixing white indentured servants
with black slaves. Sharing living quarters, sharing workplaces, and eating
together, they formed attachments. Nor were the offspring always those of a
white father and a black mother. Little evidence exists, but it appears likely
that about one illegitimate child in three or four had a black father and a
white mother. This is apparent from divorce petitions filed by white hus-
bands whose wives had produced mulatto babies.
Although sexual relations among the races in the Old South probably
cannot ever be adequately studied, some can be inferred. In his diary,
William Byrd several times mentions his annoyance that his wife was par-
ticularly cruel and vindictive to an attractive household slave girl. Such ten-
sion must often have nearly wrecked both white and black families.
A second category of slaves who fared better than field hands included
those who managed to distance themselves from a master or to place
themselves among several “virtual” masters so as to achieve a degree of
autonomy. This was true not only in British America but also in New
Netherland. For example, a slave might be permitted to farm a plot of land
so as to buy his freedom, or a blacksmith might be shared among several
plantations or might be allowed to set up shop on his own in a town. Those
who acquired the most freedom were probably sailors. Drawing on skills
they had learned in Africa—along the Atlantic and on the African rivers,
they got even farther away from the plantations. There were a surprisingly
large number of such sailors. They included perhaps one in four slaves in
coastal Massachusetts in the middle of the eighteenth century.
176 THE BIRTH OF AMERICA