Posted on October 7, 2010

That’s Just Indian in My Family

Zettler Clay, Clutch Magazine, October 4, 2010.

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{snip} According to Africans and Native Americans: The Language of Race and the Evolution of Red-Black Peoples, by Jack Forbes, indigenous peoples of America shared quarters with African slaves, which led to inter-mating.

Before the U.S. gained independence from Great Britain, British colonies in the South requested that the Cherokees, Creeks, Seminoles, and other tribes, own slaves. These tribes took in many escaped slaves and remained tight-lipped when slave owners came calling.

South Carolina law in the 18th century stated that the “carrying of Negroes among the Indians has all along been thought detrimental, as in intimacy ought to be avoided.” Despite these threats and any associated stigmas, Native Americans formed bonds with not only escaped slaves, but free Africans.

Native American women married African men when the number of men in their own communities was decimated by war or natural disaster. Some Native Americans listed themselves as “Negro” or “mixed” in order to retain ownership of their land because of the land ownership laws created by European settlers.

There’s a delicate connection between Native American and African ancestry. Yet, one would be hard-pressed to see any awareness being drummed up by American Blacks about the plight of the Native Americans. Is this an accepted fate or neglect?

Either way, “I got that Indian in my blood” is no longer a sufficient explanation of any variation in the physical appearance. {snip}

A cursory glance through world history annals reveals a habit of colonizers wiping out and displacing native cultures. American history is no exception, and the Trail of Tears has been chronicled as a sore spot in Andrew Jackson’s tenure. Today, movies and television have depicted “Indians” as having certain facial features of high cheekbones and weathered skin, but in reality their features exist in many forms.

When the Census report came in 1790, some Native Americans refused to sign and register with the Bureau of Indian Affairs. Some refused to allow themselves to be “removed” to “Indian Territory” in Oklahoma during the 1800s. As a result, many of their descendants grew up in urban environments instead of on reservations.

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Remnants of Blackfoots, Choctaws, Lenapes, Matinecocks, Mohawks and Munsees are in our metropolitan areas under the classification of being African-American. {snip}

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