Concubinage - in The United States

In The United States

When slavery became institutionalized in the North American colonies, white men, whether or not they were married, sometimes took enslaved women as concubines. Marriage between the races was prohibited by law in the colonies and the later United States. Many colonies and states also had laws against miscegenation, or any interracial relations. From 1662 the Colony of Virginia, followed by others, incorporated into law that the children took their mother's status, by the principle of partus sequitur ventrem; all children born to enslaved mothers were born into slavery, regardless of their father's status or ancestry. This led to generations of mixed-race slaves, some who were otherwise considered legally white (1/8 or less African, equivalent to a great-grandparent) before the American Civil War.

In some cases, men had long-term relationships with enslaved women, giving them and their mixed-race children freedom and providing their children with apprenticeships, education and transfer of capital. In other cases, they did nothing for them except in a minor way. Such arrangements were more prevalent in the South during the antebellum years.

Historians widely believe that the widower Thomas Jefferson, both before and during his presidency of the United States in the early 19th century, had an intimate relationship of 38 years with his mixed-race slave Sally Hemings, in such an arrangement, and fathered all of her six children of record. He freed all four of her surviving children as they came of age; the Hemings were the only slave family to go free from Monticello. The children were 7/8 European in ancestry and legally white. Three entered the white community as adults. A 1998 DNA study showed a match between the Jefferson male line and a male descendant of Sally Hemings.

In Louisiana and former French territories, a formalized system of concubinage called plaçage developed. European men took enslaved or free women of color as mistresses after making arrangements to give them a dowry, house or other transfer of property, and sometimes, if they were enslaved, offering freedom and education for their children. A third class of free people of color developed, especially in New Orleans. Many became educated, artisans and property owners. French-speaking and practicing Catholics, who combined French and African-American culture, created an elite between the whites of European descent and the masses of slaves. Today descendants of the free people of color are generally called Louisiana Creole people.