Casting of the Die Summary and Analysis

Isabell Williams is arguably the most important of the first generation of slaves to arrive in America because she married a man who had also been transported and gave birth to the first Black child born in America. Over the generations, the attitudes toward Black women have changed in some of the same ways as those against Whites, but there have also been some differences. One example is the tendency to judge Black women as having loose morals. Those who "provoked passion" were looked down upon. Often, Black women were branded as loose and temperamental.

Laws are made to address many situations, including whether the child born of a slave and a freed person would be slave or free. The law indicates that the child will have the same status as its mother, which prompts...