---------
What a fascinating couple of essays. Thanks for posting them.
I never knew any of this. I always just assumed race laws were erected to fortify slavery as a property right as the planation economy grew into a primary export business in bulk agriculture---with the hidden or unexamined assumption that almost all slaves were African descent. I knew there were European indentured servants and there were a few African descent freemen, but I had no idea both free and bonded were essentially a much less discriminant mix of Europeans and Africans. I certainly never knew that at least some African descent English were among the first planation and slave owners.
I guess I never thought about it analytically. Well, mainly because I didn't want too. The whole history pisses me off greatly, and I used to get angry and bad tempered just reading about it.
CG