Mulattoes and Mustees in the Northern Colonies and Carolinas

Abstract

The third chapter moves outside of the Chesapeake, first into Delaware, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York, and New England, and then into the Carolinas. Colonial histories are provided for the northern colonies, where there were comparatively fewer Mulattoes, due to generally lower numbers of Africans in these regions. This chapter also explores the southern region of Carolina, giving a history of the development of North Carolina and South Carolina, while highlighting their respective response to intermixture. Initially, both colonies did not prohibit intermixture and the numbers of mixed-heritage people climbed, especially in the Lowcountry of South Carolina. In the early eighteenth century, North Carolina administrators began to mirror Virginia and Maryland by following stricter forms of hypodescent and legislating against “persons of mixed blood.” As in the Caribbean, South Carolina took a comparatively more lax approach to intermixture with Europeans. Mixture between Africans and Native Americans was most prevalent, due to the importation of Africans and the English involvement with the “Indian” slave trade. In all the English colonies, people mixed with Indigenous ancestry could be referred to as Mulattoes, but in South Carolina another mixed-race term, “Mustee,” emerged from the Spanish mestizo.