Bloodlines vs. Legal Fiction: How DNA Defied the One-Drop Rule
In eighteenth-century America, law declared children of enslaved women solely “Black.” This legal fiction erased any claim to a white father’s name, lineage, or status. Yet science told a different story. Under the one-drop rule, the mother became the single source of identity and fate. The law protected the slave economy by denying paternal rights. It made the enslaved woman a solitary creator and guardian of her child. A striking example is Prince Hall. His white father, William Hall, could not legally claim him. Still, he funded his education, arranged his emancipation, and shaped his early life. The child’s Y-chromosome bears witness to a lineage that human law tried to erase.
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