Why does one of the boys have to be raised as a master and the other as a slave? Was that just the way it had to be back then or what?

-- Anonymous, February 28, 2000

Answers

The reason one child had to be slave and one child had to be master was that one of the two babies was known to be Roxy's baby, and it was also known that Percy Driscoll had only one baby. If Roxy had tried to pass both children off as white, it wouldn't have worked because too many people knew that one baby was Roxy's and one baby was a Driscoll. She had to have one slave and one master, to not create any suspicion.

-- Anonymous, March 03, 2000

One of the boys had to be a slave because one of them had to belong to Roxy and she is a negro. Everyone in the community knew that Percy Driscoll had only one child so she couldn't pass both of the boys off as being white.

-- Anonymous, March 05, 2000

One of the boys had to be a slave because technically one of them was 1/32 black and any slight bit of black meant you were and you had to be slave.

-- Anonymous, June 15, 2000