The Anti-Amalgamation Law is Passed

On September 20, 1664, Maryland passed the first anti-amalgamation law to stop intermarriage of white women and black men. An excerpt from the article:

"On this date in 1664, Maryland passed the first Anti-Amalgamation law. This law was intended to prevent marriages between Black men and English women. It was an early white-American effort to avoid the intersectionality of gender, color, class, religious identity, nationality and more.

The Governor of the state at the time was Sir William Berkeley. Interracial marriage was a fairly common practice during the colonial era among white indentured servants and Black slaves as well as in more aristocratic circles. Subsequently, similar laws were passed in Virginia in 1691, Massachusetts in 1705, North Carolina in 1715, South Carolina in 1717, Delaware in 1721, and Pennsylvania in 1725. Intermarriage bans were lifted during Reconstruction in the early 1870s, but by the end of the decade, mixed marriages were declared void. It wasn't until the 1950s and 1960's that all of these laws were lifted again."