Performative law and the maintenance of interracial social boundaries: Assuaging antebellum fears of "white slavery" and the case of Sally Miller/Salome Mu¨ller

Abstract

This essay provides a performative analysis of the legal constructions of antebellum white slaves and mulattas/os. By looking at the polysemic readings of the "body" of Sally Miller, the author provides an illustration of the contradictions and complications that attended racial classification systems in the South. The author argues that the rhetoric surrounding the Sally Miller case helped to alter the legal presumptions that were used in evaluating the status of slaves and free persons of color and that critics would later use these courtroom performances in their critiques of the dangers that attended the misidentification of whites or mulattas/os. This antebellum case study also provides an example of some of the tactics that were used by some of the communities who have seeking the power of whiteness in the 19th century.