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Chapter 5. Race and Ancestry 127
however, since the bulk of the Negro population during the slavery period
was rural Southern.
6. Miscegenation in Recent Times
The third stage of Negro-white sex contact came with the Civil War and
its aftermath. The Northern army left an unknown amount of Yankee
genes in the Southern Negro people.^® The prolonged disturbances follow-
ing the War were probably even more important. Reuter summarizes the
situation in these words:
The emancipation of the slaves and the breakdown of the master-slave relationship
was followed by a prolonged period of profound disorganization. Restraints were
removed and the manumitted slaves w’andered in celebration. The period was one
of more or less unrestrained promiscuity.®®
This period was not a short one. When the Negro population gradually
settled down in the caste status which had been substituted for slavery, sex-
ual mores can be assumed to have been continued much along ante-bellum
lines. The only new element in the situation, apparently, was the lack of
interest in breeding mulatto children for the slave market, because the latter
no longer existed. What evidence there is on interracial sexual relations
during the later decades of the nineteenth century does not indicate that such
relations were considerably less frequent than during slavery j
they might
even have been somewhat more frequent.
It is more difficult to form even a conjectural judgment as to the amount
of interracial sexual relations during the twentieth century and as to the
present trend than it is to ascertain broadly the facts for earlier periods.
Interracial sexual relations are more closely guarded than ever, and life
is more anonymous and less fixed in groups about whose behavior simple
and valid generalizations might be made. The slight increase in scientific
research on the subject has not compensated for these trends. Among
factors which might have tended to increase interracial sexual contact must
be reckoned: increased Negro migration to cities and the North 5
slow but
gradual urbanization even of rural districts in the South j
and the seculariza-
tion of sexual morals, particularly among the white population. Among
factors tending to have an opposite effect are: in the white population, the
gradual breakdown of the sexual double standard (making for easier accessi-
bility of white women for extra-marital purposes), the balancing of the
sex ratio, and the publicity about the high rate of venereal disease among
Negroes 5
in the Negro population, the gradually increasing race pride, the
relatively lessened value of concubinage with a white man, the slowly
spreading middle class morality in sex matters. Public opinion in the
South also has become firmer in condemning white men’s sex relations
with Negro women, and the segregation of the Negro people has - become
more complete.
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