Children of the plantation
"Children of the plantation" was a euphemism used during the time of slavery in the United States, to identify the offspring born to black female slaves and white men, usually the slave's owner, one of the owner's relatives, or the plantation overseer. Rape of female slaves was common on plantations. These children were born into slavery, through a legal doctrine known as "partus sequitur ventrem". They were classified as mulattoes, a former term for a multiracial person. The one drop rule meant that they could never be part of white society. Some of the  fathers treated these children well, sometimes providing educational or career opportunities, or manumitting (freeing) them. Examples are Archibald and Francis Grimké, and Thomas Jefferson's children by Sally Hemings. Others treated their multiracial children as property; Alexander Scott Withers, for instance, sold two of his children to slave traders, where they were sold again. Alex Haley's "" (1993) is a historical novel, later a movie, that brought knowledge of the "children of the plantation" to public attention. Edward Ball's "Slaves in the Family" (1998), written by a White descendant of slave owners, describes this complex legacy. Toni Morrison wrote  that this sexual usage of slaves was known as "droit du seigneur", the "right of the lord", a term originating in the feudalism of medieval Europe. Genetic research in 1998 estimated that nearly 20% of the African-American's genetic contribution originates from Europe, which is much higher than the European contribution in Jamaicans or Haitians.