"English or White": the color word enters the statute books (Maryland, August–September 1681; Virginia, 3 April 1691)

SUMMARY"English or White": the color word enters the statute books (Maryland, August–September 1681; Virginia, 3 April 1691) [Connections: Masonic color line, asylums, castles, wight, Nov 5, 2026]

RECORDMaryland's "Act concerning Negroes & Slaues" (1681; Archives of Maryland vol. 7, pp. 203–204) again makes "all Negroes & other Slaues... serve (durante vita)." Its marriage clause speaks of "diuerse ffreeborne Englishe or White-" women who "doe Intermarry with Negroes & Slaues," which it blames on "Lascivious & Lustfull desires." Virginia's act of 3 April 1691 (Hening vol. 3, pp. 86–88) aims to prevent "that abominable mixture and spurious issue." It orders that "whatsoever English or other white man or woman being free shall intermarry with a negroe, mulatto, or Indian man" "shall within three months after such marriage be banished and removed from this dominion forever."

PATTERNIn both colonies "white" first appears paired with "English," as if the two were interchangeable. By 1691 Virginia's "or other white" widens the protected group beyond the English, and Indians are placed on the other side of the line beside "negroe" and "mulatto."

LENS (WW9)Here the paper invents the category. "English" becomes "white," and Native people are filed with "negroe."

OPENIs 1681 the first use of "white" in Maryland statute law? The Maryland State Archives chapter "Blacks Before the Law in Colonial Maryland" does not say. Search both colonies' laws for earlier uses of "white." Check the OCR against the page images

SOURCEArchives of Maryland vol. 7 p. 203, p. 204; Encyclopedia Virginia: 1691 act (Hening 3:86–88); MSA: Blacks Before the Law in Colonial Maryland, ch. 3.