An Omitted History The Black Indian In America Hawzienawit Gebremedhin
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Black Indians are a group of people of often forgotten about in US history. This small group of descendents of both African American and Native American ancestry are rarely mentioned in our school books and history classes, yet millions of black peoples lived amongst Indians as family, and there are still a small percentage of them today. Black Indians have strong ties to Native American culture, as well as historical and social traditions, and were either adopted/born into Indian families or lived amongst the Natives as family. While unknown to many people, during the time of colonization in the Americas, the indigenous people worked with African slaves helping some to freedom, intermarrying/ inviting them in as family members, and even keeping some as slaves (African Native Americans). This essay will explore the life of the black Indian from the colonization of the Americas to present time.
The intermingling of Africans and Native Americans can be attributed to the transatlantic slave trade that began in the 16th century (Cook). The transatlantic slave trade was a form of stealing, shipping, and selling slaves across three parts of the world, North America, Europe and the Caribbean’s/South America. Slaves were mainly sold and stolen from the Western shores of Africa, but some Indian slaves were also seized from the Americas. In October of 1492, Explorer Christopher Columbus first encountered the indigenous peoples of Americas, and forever changed their existence. Upon meeting them, Columbus wrote to his queen of the Taino Indians he came across, describing them as, "So tractable, so peaceable, are these people, that I swear to your Majesties there is not in the world a better nation� (Cook). Months later, Columbus stripped these same Indians off of their home land and shipped them to Spain (many of them
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dying on the voyage there), entering the first Native Americans into the transatlantic slave trade. This would not be America’s final association within the slave trade. For hundreds of years following Columbus’ arrival, millions of Africans were transported to America to live as slaves for their white “subordinates.” History places the first African slaves in Jamestown Virginia. According to Eddie Becker, author of the Chronology of the History of Slavery 1619 to 1789, “A Dutch slave trader exchanged his cargo of Africans for food in 1619. The Africans became indentured servants, similar in legal position to many poor Englishmen who traded several years labor in exchange for passage to America.” It wasn’t until the later in the century that race based slavery developed. Much like the Native American, Africans were stripped of their heritage, treated like second class citizens and told they were less than human. Africans were removed of their language, killed in mass quantities, and were slaves for the greater period of the 18th and 19th century. While the African in America lived the life as a slave, countless numbers of Indigenous Americans were being slaughtered and forcibly removed from their land. One of the most infamous atrocities that forced the Indian off of their home land was the “Trail of Tears”. From 1838-1839 Andrew Jackson’s Indian Removal Policy forced the Cherokee nation to relinquish their land east of the Mississippi and to migrate to un-farmable conditions in Oklahoma. This march, known as “Trail of Tears,” killed nearly 1/4th of the 15,000 Cherokees (Trail of Tears). Documents record that there was over twelve million Native Americans living in what is now the United States prior to European settlement. Today, that number has been cut dramatically to just two or three million. During this time period of European expansion, Native Americans went through the utmost brutality, some even consider this time period “The Native American Genocide” (Trabich, 1997). Native Americans were put through insurmountable pain
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including but not limited to, massacres, burning of crops and animals, and stealing of children. Hostility between the Indian and the white man was at its highest, as wars and massacres continued to ripple around the country. The similar injustices experienced by the African and the Indian, created a special bond between them. According to historian William Katz, it was the hate pushed on to African slaves and Native Americans that pushed them together, he writes, Despite every European effort to keep one dark people from assisting the other, the two races began to blend on a vast scale. Black Indians were apparent everywhere if one bothered to look. Thomas Jefferson, for example, found among the Mattaponies of his Virginia, "more negro than Indian blood in them." Another eyewitness reported Virginia's Gingaskin reservation had become "largely African." Peter Kalm, whose famous diary described a visit to the British colonies in 1750, took note of many Africans living with Indians, with marriage and children the normal result. (Katz 108-109). Katz continues to explain that many runaway slaves were invited to live with Native Americans and created a sort of safe haven for them, which created great fear for white slave holding communities. This fear was the strongest in the South because that was where the most African slaves were held captive, and where blacks and Indians amalgamated. Of these Indians, the nation most disconcerting to the United States was the Seminole Nation. The Seminole Nation was part of the Five Civilized Tribes, which was comprised of the Cherokee, Chickasaw, Choctaw, Creek, and Seminole. Developed in 1859, these tribes were considered “civilized� because of their ability to adapt to American society. According to Katz, one of these adaptations included slavery. Of the five tribes, all but the Seminoles adopted slavery, although it was far less cruel than white
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slavery. In an interview given on National Public Radio (NPR) Katz describes the form of slavery performed by the 4 out of 5 nations as, “it wasn't the kind of slavery that we associate with the plantations of the South. And people could get married, they could eat at the same table. People could get free and they were treated nicely. And we know this from the testimony, they would much rather have had Native Americans to be their masters than the white slave owners of the South” (Mortin, 2010). The Seminoles on the other hand, rejected this push by the US government and continued to live with blacks as brothers. The word Seminole is actually a Creek Indian word meaning runaway, and, according to Katz, Seminoles were actually a mix of Creek Indian Runaways, and black slave runaways. The relationship between this group of people led to fears of an uprising of the native and black mix, and Katz explains that the forcible “Trail of Tears” march was actually a ploy to avoid an uprising. He writes, "For white U.S. citizens in the eastern states problems presented by Native Americans were solved in a single dramatic stroke by the Indian Removal Act of 1830. It provided for the mass deportation of the Five Civilized Nations,” "Some sixty thousand red and black men and women were eventually deposited on lands in Arkansas and Oklahoma that whites considered uninhabitable," “Cherokee men, women, and children, including one thousand six hundred Black Cherokees were prodded westward in midwinter by Federal bayonets" (Katz 136-137). As mentioned above, the actions by the US government to rid the United States of its indigenous peoples can be considered a success. Along with killing the majority of Native Americans, black Indians and their history were almost completely eradicated as well. Today many African Americans claim that they have some type of Indian blood in them, but with the decline of historical records to back them up, and tribal enrollment records to justify their claims,
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it is hard to truly understand who is a Black Indian. Shonda Buchanan, an English Professor at Hampton University considers herself a Black Indian, although the Indian tribal members she has encountered consider her otherwise. In an interview conducted on NPR, she says that although she appears black and is not tribally enrolled, her heritage, history, and oral tradition passed down to her makes her a Black Indian. After being turned away from dancing in a traditional Chickahominy powwow for not having a tribal enrollment card, she explained, “It's who I am. I don't know, sometimes I feel like, you know, I'm going to sit at that counter. I'm going to drink out of that water fountain, you know? This is a heritage that my people have. And I wasn't raised on a reservation, but I was raised knowing I was black and Indian.” In the same interview, Katz, describes her experience as a common occurrence among Black Indians today. He explains that, “There's been a kind of rift. So it seems that the initial lack of racism that led to this amalgamation has now gradually morphed into the acceptance of the kind of racism that was so prevalent in the white societies that nurtured it with slavery.” Black Indians in America are a part of society that is barely recognized. Their history is omitted from our school books and the existence of true Black Indians is often questioned today. Black slaves once lived amongst the Indigenous Americans as equal counterparts, husbands and wives, and even at times slaves, but the shared experience of racial hierarchy brought them together as one as a force against their white colonizers and slaveholders. Although ignored in school teachings, Black Indians have a vast record in the United States.
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Work Cited African-NativeAmerican.com. Web. 26 Mar. 2011. <http://www.african-nativeamerican.com>. Balls, Edward K. "Chronology on the History of Slavery 1619 to 1789." Columbia Heights Welcome Page. Web. 04 Apr. 2011. <http://www.innercity.org/holt/slavechron.html>. "Black Indians (Afro-Native Americans) - Americas - ColorQ's Color Club." ColorQ World: Interracial Relations between Non-Europeans. Web. 12 Mar. 2011. http://www.colorq.org/meltingpot/article.aspx?d=America&x=blackIndians "Black Indians and Cherokee Freedmen." Cherokee Resources, Cherokee Genealogy, Cherokee Religion. Web. 12 Mar. 2011. <http://www.cherokeebyblood.com/blackindians.htm>. Cook Roy. "Columbus Day: American Holocaust and Slave Trader." AMERICAN INDIAN SOURCE. Web. 10 Apr. 2011. <http://americanindiansource.com/columbusday.html>. Katz, William Loren. Black Indians: a Hidden Heritage. New York: Atheneum, 1986. Print. Mortin, Michel, WIlliam Katz, and SHonda Buchanan. "Black Indians Explore Challenges Of 'Hidden' Heritage : NPR." NPR : National Public Radio : News & Analysis, World, US, Music & Arts : NPR. Web. 04 Apr. 2011. <http://www.npr.org/2010/11/30/131696685/-Black-IndiansExplore-Challenges-Of-Hidden-Heritage>. Theodore, Walker. "A History of Red Black Solidarity." Faculty. 1992. Web. 05 Apr. 2011. <http://faculty.smu.edu/twalker/1992.htm>. Trabich, Leah. "Native American Genocide Still Haunts United States." An End to Intolerance 5 (June 1997). Print.
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"The Trail of Tears." PBS: Public Broadcasting Service. Web. 13 Apr. 2011. <http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part4/4h1567.html>.