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 1866, Rhode Island,[48] in 1881, and Maine,[49] in 1883, repealed their laws against intermarriage outright. A statute of Michigan[50] in 1883 provided that all marriages theretofore contracted between white persons and those wholly or in part of African descent should be valid and effectual and the offspring legitimate, but it said nothing about marriages contracted in the future. Professor Frederick J. Stimson[51] has apparently interpreted the statute to apply to marriages in the future as well as to those already contracted. Finally, Ohio[52] in 1887 repealed its law of 1877, providing for the punishment of persons of "pure white blood" who intermarry or have carnal intercourse with any Negro or person having a distinct and visible admixture of African blood.

MARRIAGES BETWEEN THE NEGRO AND NON-CAUCASIAN RACES

It is significant that the States have not prohibited intermarriage between two different races except where one is the Caucasian. In no State is it unlawful for Mongolians and Indians, Negroes and Mongolians, or Negroes and Indians to intermarry. The only exception to the last is that in North Carolina[53] it is unlawful for Negroes to intermarry with Croatan Indians or to go to the same school with them. To this statute hangs a beautiful historical tradition. In 1585, the date of the first attempt by Englishmen to colonize the New World, there was an island off the coast of North Carolina called Croatoan. By the shifting of the sands, it is now probably a part of Hatteras or Ocracoke Island. In 1587, a colony of one