The case of Robert Wright is a case that is constructed entirely of exceptions. Although his father, Thomas, cohabited with a woman of full African descent, he lost no respect in his community and continued to prosper as an individual, eventually freeing all of his partner’s children. He declared the mixed-race Robert Wright his heir, and often told him he had particularly light skin for his race. As Robert grew up, he was largely regarded in the same way a well-off white man would have been, which is probably why so many white citizens ignored his illegal marriage and supported his divorce.
There are several factors that influenced his “whiteness”; not only was he the son of a white man, but the remarks made by those who knew him imply that …show more content…
While there was a demographic imbalance in Native Americans, as many men had died in battle, it is important to note that some Native American women took black husbands for an alternate reason: they were tired of the gender roles women had fulfill in their culture and desired a marriage in which work was done by men or by both partners. Whether this was the case for Sarah is unclear, but it would make sense as to why she married the men she did. For black men, marrying an Indian woman was similarly desirable; as slavery was matrilineal, the children of Sarah were born free, no longer belonging to one set race. Also, black men were able to reshape their ethnicities by marrying Native American women, gaining land and respect in their wives’ communities. The matrilineal nature of slavery and the lack of a voice from black women in both Sarah Muckamugg’s case and Thomas Wright’s case suggest that race and gender were deeply intertwined at the time of these …show more content…
By ridding himself of his blackness and assuming his father’s social class, Thomas Wright was able to assign himself to a different ethnicity and leave a part of his heritage behind. He took land from his black mother and her family, claiming it almost entirely for himself. Even when he provided them with land, he was the one regulating it; instead of letting them live their lives as equals, he saw the need to parent them throughout the course of their lives, thrusting his whiteness in their faces. While this story is very different from Sarah Muckamugg’s, it is interesting to wonder about the black women that never had the same freedom of choice as Indian American women and black men. Black women were forced to pass down the curse of slavery to their children, binding their offspring to one social class for life (unless a rich white man intervened, like Thomas Wright with his partner). It is likely that slavery was matrilineal at least partially to the Western notion of women being cursed and lesser, or simply the belief that men were capable of freeing themselves. From that point on, women of colour were destined to have their freedom determined by their sexuality. Their bodies became their vehicle for the freedom of their children; their future depended on white men sexualizing and freeing their children. This has almost definitely led directly to how black women are treated in our