ID# 1327:
Brochure advertising Mongrel Virginians, by Arthur H. Estabrook and Ivan E. McDougle
Date:
1926
Pages: (1|2|3)
Source:
University of Albany, SUNY, Estabrook, SPE,XMS 80.9 Bx 1 folder1-36

Brochure advertising <i>Mongrel Virginians</i>, by Arthur H. Estabrook and Ivan E. McDougle

MONGREL VIRGINIANS The Background Virginia has a Racial Integrity law, passed in 1924, prohibiting the marriage of white persons with any but white persons, except American Indians. "White person" is defined as one who has no trace whatsoever of any other blood than Caucasian. Persons having one-sixteenth or less of Indian blood, and no other non-Caucasic blood, are deemd "white persons." Around this law and its enhancement there has been a storm of discussion, not only in Virginia but throughout the South. Mississippi passed a duplicate law, and several other states have similar legislation. Critical Questions Raised It is alleged that there are no Indian strains without negro admixture; that the purity of the white race hangs in the balance; that every white race which has lived in continuous contact with the negro, has been mongrelized; that every such mongrel race has without exception, degenerated and reverted to barbarism; that the saying "one drop of negro blood makes the negro" is no mere theory based on race prejudice but a logically induced scientific fact. On the other hand, Racial Integrity law has been attacked as being impossible of enforcement, as being based on race prejudice, as placing an unwarranted stigma upon people in many cases of prominence and repute. No scientist and no layman of intelligence will be content to determine the answers to the questions raised on the basis of prejudice or politics. Cool judgment is the requisite - such cool judgment as can proceed only from a recitation of scientifically determined facts. A Thorough Research To get at those facts Dr. Estabrook and Dr. McDougle have spent four years in investigation. Both are trained observers - the one a eugenist, the other a sociologist. Dr. Charles R. Davenport of the Eugenics Record Office co-operated actively in the research. The authors have exhausted the eugenic and the historic background. The particular group of people which they studied have lived in the same locality for over a hundred years. Official records in the state and county of habitat have been preserved intact without a single loss. Virginia has had a vital statistics law since 1853, except the period 1896-1912. With this invaluable data, Federal Census records have been checked. The family tree is complete. The entire genealogy broken into portions will be found in the 27 charts scattered throughout the first half of the book. In addition, the present generation has been viewed from every angle. All living members of the Win Tribe have been interviewed, time and again. Every known white, ccolored or Indian person in the state or nation who could furnish information concerning the deceased or living members of the Tribe has been consulted. The Group Typical, Not Unique This is of course, not the only group of its kind in the South. The closing pages of the book briefly list many others throughout Virginia and the Carolinas and even as far north as Delaware. Sometimes such group number only a handful. Sometimes they number thousands. Intensive study was first given the Wins (the word is made from the initial letters of White, Indian, Negro), however, because of the completeness of available records which reveals the history of this triple-colored people. The result of these years of patient investigation is now offered in MONGREL VIRGINIANS. It is a dispassionate presentation of facts. No "moral" is drawn, and no "solution" attempted. The authors have not been concerned with racial or political propaganda. They hold no brief on behalf of the Racial Integrity law, or against it. Their interest has been solely one of investigation. They present the results of that investigation as unemotionally as a bookkeeper adding up a column of figures. Fictitious names for persons and localities have been made use of, in order to make statements in print which would not otherwise have been possible, from the standpoint of injury to the sensibilities of living persons-a device which has given greater freedom in the statement of plain fact. Published material has hitherto been frankly political and racial special pleading, or has been in the field of sociological or sentimental generalities. This is a book of facts. Plan of the Book The first portion of the book consists of a narrative description of each member noted on the family tree for the past century. Since the people under investigation are Indian-negro-white triple crosses, this portion opens a new field in sociological and eugenical research. This portion of the volume is supplemented by 27 genealogical charts, a specimen of which is given. [chart] Sociological Summary There follows a sociological summary of the entire group. Such phases are considered as: Population; Fecundity; Consanguinity; Legitimacy; Sex Mores; Intelligence Levels; School and Church History; and lastly a racial study of marriage records. This portion is supplemented by a series of seven tables, showing (for instance) the percentage of illegitimacy in each generation; results obtained from application to individuals of the Binet-Simon test; frequency of the matings of cousins; school proficiency; and so forward. A final most interesting table gives the racial classification as shown by marriage licenses - the actual racial makeup; the race or color given in the license; the race or color given for the children of these unions when they came to be married. An amazing inconsistency is shown in comparing the three columns. An example: "Austin Brown," a mixture of Indian and negro was married in 1879 to one "Roxanna" who was Indian and white. The license gives both as "white." Five of the children were married as "white," two as "colored" and one as "Indian." A chapter is subjoined on other mixed areas in the South, and the book closes with a general summary. An appendix includes the Racial Integrity law of Virginia. Contents The Win Tribe: Introduction, Early History, The White Brown Family, The Indian Browns, The Indian Jones, Population, Fecundity, Consanguinity, Legitimacy, The Sex Mores, Alcoholism, Venereal Disease, Tuberculosis, Schools, Church and Mission History, Marriage Records. Other Mixed Areas. General Summary. Appendix, Virginia Racial Integrity Law of 1924 MONGREL VIRGINIANS - The First Authoritative Scientific Study of Mixed Races in the South $3.00 The Williams & Wilkins Company Publishers of Scientific Books and Periodicals Baltimore, U.S.A. [boxed text, middle column] THE AUTHORS Dr. Arthur H. Estabrook is a specialist in eugenic records, and has been with the Eugenics Record Office of the Carnegie Institution since 1910. He has made special studies of the "Nam" family and of the "Jukes"; also of the "Tribe of Ishmael" of Indiana. Also the author of many brochures and magazine articles. He is now president of the Eugenics Research Association. Dr. Ivan E. McDougle is Associate Professor of Economics and Sociology at Goucher College, Baltimore; from 1919 to 1924 he was professor of sociologyin Sweet Briar (Va.) College. For several years he lectured on sociology throughout the country. He is the author of [begin italics]Slavery in Kentucky[end italics] and various magazine articles on race history and problems. He is lecturer on sociology at the College of William and Mary. [end boxed text] [end]

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