Interracial romance has been a point of argument in America since the first English settlers established colonies in the seventeenth century. In 1664 Maryland banned interracial marriage due to questions over whether the children of a black slave and a white person would be considered a free person or property. In following years, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, and South Carolina instituted anti-miscegenation laws which banned interracial marriage. In 1691 Virginia outlawed interracial couples and labeled their children as "that abominable mixture and spurious issue." …