Virginia, 1705: Indian and African descent within “mulatto” | Source Catalog
Public source-catalog entry · GOV-006
Record information
Original or catalog title: Virginia, 1705: Indian and African descent within “mulatto”
Record type: Statute. Date: October 1705. Places or communities: Virginia.
Catalog summary
This act bars “negro, mulatto or Indian” people from public office. Its definition of “mulatto” includes a child of an Indian and specified generations descended from a Negro. It documents overlapping legal categories while still naming Indian separately in the office prohibition.
Source citation
Virginia General Assembly, chapter IV; Hening, Statutes at Large, vol. 3, pp. 250–252. Primary text published by Virginia Humanities.
Reading the source in context
The operative category in this clause is “mulatto.” Calling this a blanket law renaming all Indians “Negro” would misstate its wording. The source page’s introductory sentence has a conflicting 1785 date; the title, chapter and Hening volume identify the act as October 1705.
The summary above is a modern catalog description. It is separate from the original record and does not establish a connection to any reader's family. Consult the source, then corroborate people, places, dates, and relationships.
A closer reading of the 1705 wording
The act addresses eligibility for public office and positions of public trust. Its final definition treats the child of an Indian, and specified generations descended from a Negro, as mulatto. Earlier wording in the same act lists negro, mulatto, and Indian separately. Read those clauses together rather than treating one sentence as a complete description of every person's identity.
Short transcription from the defining clause
Historical terminology is reproduced here as source language, not as a present-day description of people.
the child of an Indian and the child, grand child, or great grand child, of a negro
This excerpt is from chapter IV in Hening, volume 3, pages 250–252. The full sentence continues by assigning the legal category mulatto. The linked edition supplies the complete act.
Use the law alongside family records
A statute shows a rule imposed by a government. Applying that rule to a particular ancestor requires identifying the person, jurisdiction, date, and relevant record. Make a timeline of the family's documented residences before comparing labels used in different places or years.
Create separate notes for the record's exact label, the law that may have affected it, and your interpretation. Look for a local court, parish, tax, probate, land, or other surviving record that can connect the person to the question you are investigating.
This source does not by itself prove that a named ancestor's classification changed, establish tribal citizenship, or explain every use of a racial term. Those are additional research questions.
Comments