White passing in runaway slave ads

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It's crazy how specific they were regarding color and who passes for what. It's psychotic.

The sexual abuse enslaved women endured is just so mind blowing and heart shattering.

This is fascinating and hits home. My mother is Mexican and family history has it that one of our ancestors was a runaway slave girl from Mississippi who was described as a “white Negro.” Her mother was an octoroon slave who was impregnated by her owner. The owner bred her to produce light-skinned slaves who were in demand to work in the house as butlers, valets, etc. The story is she ran away and blended in with white folk but was recognised and captured, returned to her owner, but eventually escaped and made it to Mexico, where she married a local man. This was pre-Civil War, probably 1830s. Of course, it’s all anecdotal family stories, no way to document anything 200 years later.

I had always questioned why my hair and that of my brothers grew out coarse and into Afros instead of being straight. Later on, through DNA and ancestry, I learned the truth. We descended from a group of people called Melungeons on my dad's side. They were made up of a mixture of European, African, Native American, Iberian, Turcic, and Jewish. I was looking at the 1850 census listing for my 3rd great-grandfather, and he had a slash in the color column. I looked it up and found that he was considered a 'white mulatto' with money. It was the same for his children in the 1860 census. I'm proud of my mixed heritage and think that most people are more mixed than they think. Great subject, and I truly enjoy your videos!

As I watched this, I wondered how many of the runaway enslaved people that could "pass" were the children, grandchildren and relatives of the enslavers? It's just so weird and cruel. Those people, even if they passed, must have always lived with the fear of being discovered and enslaved again.

One thing to remember when discussing women passing for freedom was that most were desperate to escape the “fancy girl” trade. This was a separate slave trade from black slaves and was strictly for the purpose of sex trafficking light and white appearing mixed women and girls. The bulk of which were sold to New Orleans and Lexington KY into brothels. These girls were literally running for their lives.

Reading "12 Years a Slave" helped me realize what passing for white really meant. If I recall correctly, the author saw a group of "White" people outside, but realized they were slaves based off their clothes. I then thought about people in my family who are 1/4 and 1/8 Black. People see them as White people, but 200 years ago they would have been slaves.

My DNA test showed an African ancestor on my Mom's side, much to my side. After years of searching, I think I 've narrowed my African ancestor to a g-g-g grandmother who we can find no information. Who know if she escaped or was emancipated. Great episode.

Some of the Masters were the fathers of these children; they had with the Black mother.

My cousin's grandfather was a light skin black man who could pass for white. He married a dark skin woman and produces light skin aunt who married my mother's uncle. She was fair skin, long straight black hair and blue eyes. White people never saw her as black but she was very offended when people would call her white. She was proud of her African heritage. She was born close to 1900 in Texas.

As a person with a passing Grandfather, this was never a secret.

that’s why so many white southerners have some African dna and are shocked.,.

The worst part is that the "master" was most often the runaway's father or some other relative, what a tragic betrayal.

It hasn’t stopped yet. In one of my extended family trees on Ancestry, some rando made a comment about how the photo associated with the person couldn’t be of the correct person since the census records showed that individual as “black” or “mulatto” depending on the census, and the person in the photo was “too white”. They clearly had no understanding of history or how racial categories were defined in the past.

I read a civil war diary and the author said there were slaves running around that looked more like the master than his own children

Say it loud I’m black and I’m proud. I’m proud of my 52% African heritage 💯💯❤

Thank you. That was a fascinating look from a new perspective on my nation's madness over race. What jumped out at me, but passed unmentioned directly, was that many of these ads for "runaway slaves" must have been in actuality ads for runaway family members. Many of those "passing for white" people must have been the half siblings, children, or cousins of the people searching for them.

What a wicked system. And the descendants of these people thieves will swear to no end that there is no institutional racism. Imagine the trauma. As a more European presenting biracial Black man, I can only imagine the trauma of escaping, running, hiding and having to leave the people you love to live among people who literally hated you. Trauma upon trauma.

My family are from the Caribbean and are a mixture of african, English and Scottish. Some of us look totally African, even the ones with European blood. Some, like myself, look mixed-race. Olive skinned, brown/blonde hair, green or blue, light coloured eyes. My son's first child, a girl, appears totally white. Pale skin with a few freckles, grey-green eyes, and blonde hair that became red as sge got older. Her mother is fully white. The person who filled out her birth certificate, listed her as white. Her father walked in and she changed it to black. My granddaughter is perceived as white by anyone who meets her. I told her to let them believe as they like, but to value both sides. She was born in 2007. So this is still happening.