Anti-miscegenation laws discouraging interracial marriage between White Americans and non-Whites affected South Asian immigrants as early as the 17th century.
Ī sizable number of the indentured servants in the Thirteen Colonies were brought over from the Indian subcontinent by the East India Company. Moreover, after the independence of the United States had been established, similar laws were enacted in territories and states which outlawed slavery.
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Later these laws also spread to colonies with fewer enslaved and free Black people, such as Pennsylvania and Massachusetts. This was the first time in American history that a law was invented that restricted access to marriage partners solely on the basis of "race", not class or condition of servitude. The Virginian House of Burgesses passed a law in 1691 forbidding free Black people and Whites to intermarry, followed by Maryland in 1692. In 1664, Maryland criminalized such marriages-the 1681 marriage of Irish-born Nell Butler to an enslaved African man was an early example of the application of this law. Īt first, in the 1660s, the first laws in Virginia and Maryland regulating marriage between Whites and Black people only pertained to the marriages of Whites to Black (and mulatto) enslaved people and indentured servants. The first laws criminalizing marriage and sex between Whites and non-Whites were enacted in the colonial era in the colonies of Virginia and Maryland, which depended economically on slavery.
In addition, Oklahoma in 1908 banned marriage "between a person of African descent" and "any person not of African descent" Louisiana in 1920 banned marriage between Native Americans and African Americans (and from 1920 to 1942, concubinage as well) and Maryland in 1935 banned marriages between Black people and Filipinos. In many states, anti-miscegenation laws also criminalized cohabitation and sex between Whites and non-Whites.
All anti-miscegenation laws banned marriage between Whites and non-White groups, primarily Black people, but often also Native Americans and Asian Americans. Sometimes, the individuals attempting to marry would not be held guilty of miscegenation itself, but felony charges of adultery or fornication would be brought against them instead. Typically defining mixed-race marriages or sexual relations as a felony, these laws also prohibited the issuance of marriage licenses and the solemnization of weddings between mixed-race couples and prohibited the officiation of such ceremonies. The term miscegenation was first used in 1863, during the American Civil War, by journalists to discredit the abolitionist movement by stirring up debate over the prospect of interracial marriage after the abolition of slavery. Virginia that such laws were unconstitutional (via the 14th Amendment adopted in 1868) in the remaining 16 states. Nine states never enacted such laws 25 states had repealed their laws by 1967, when the U.S. Some such laws predate the establishment of the United States, some dating to the later 17th or early 18th century, a century or more after the complete racialization of slavery. In the United States, anti-miscegenation laws (also known as miscegenation laws) were laws passed by most states that prohibited interracial marriage, and in some cases also prohibited interracial sexual relations.
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