Eleanor Butler (also known as Nell Butler or Irish Nell; born 1665) was an indentured white woman who married an enslaved African man in colonial Maryland in 1681.
Biography
Butler, who was of Irish origin, was an indentured servant to Charles Calvert, 3rd Baron Baltimore. A 1664 Maryland law outlined the legal status of a free woman who voluntarily married an enslaved man: she would serve the master of her husband until his death, and any offspring of their union would be born into slavery. Despite this, Butler was determined to be wed. The new law additionally outlawed marriages between female servants and enslaved men and provided for huge punitive fines to be levied on the enslaver ("master") of any enslaved person thus wed. Butler and Charles lived out the rest of their lives enslaved by William Boarman, Eleanor Butler's husband's enslaver.
In October 1770, two of their descendants, William and Mary Butler, still enslaved, filed suit for their freedom on the basis they were descendants of a white woman.