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Negro Indian History
Negro and Indian. The first Negro slaves
were introduced into the New World
(1501-03) ostensibly to labor in the place of the Indians, who showed themselves
ill-suited to enforced tasks and moreover were being exterminated in the Spanish colonies. The Indian
Negro intermixture has proceeded on a larger scale
in South America, but not a little has also taken place in various parts of the
northern continent. Wood (New England's Prospect, 77, 1634) tells
how some
Indians of Massachusetts in 1633, coming across a Negro in the top of a tree
were frightened, surmising that; 'he was Abamacho, or the devil."
Nevertheless, intermixture of Indians and Negroes has occurred in New England.
About the middle of the 18th century the Indians of Martha's Vineyard began to
intermarry with Negroes, the result being that "the mixed race increased in
numbers and improved in temperance and industry." A like intermixture with
similar a results is reported about the same time from parts of Cape Cod. Among
the Mashpee in 1802 very few pure Indians were left, there being a number of
mulattoes (Mass Hist. Soc. Coll., r, 206; iv, 206; ibid., 2d s., iii, 4;
cf. Prince in Am. Anthrop., ix, no. 3, 1907). Robert Rantoul in 1833 (Hist.
Coll. Essex Inst., xxiv, 81) states that "the Indians are said to be improved
by the mixture." In 1890, W. H. Clark (Johns Hopk. Univ. Circ., x, no. 84, 28)
says of the Gay Head Indians: "Although one observes much that betokens the
Indian type, the admixture of Negro and white blood has materially changed
them." The deportation of the Pequot to the Bermudas after the defeat of 1638
may have led to admixture there. The Pequot of Groton, Conn., who in 1832
numbered but 40, were reported as considerably mixed with white and Negro blood,
and the condition of the few representatives of the Paugusset of Milford in
1849 was about the same (De Forest, Hist. Inds. Conn., 356, 1853). Of the
Indians in Ledyard we read: "None of the pure Pequot race are left,
all being mixed with Indians of other tribes or with whites and Negroes." Long
Island presents another point of Indian-Negro admixture. Of the Shinnecock on
the south shore, Gatschet in 1889 (Am. Antiq., xi, 390, 1889) observe "There are,
150 individuals now going under this name, but they are nearly all mixed with
Negro blood, dating from the times of slavery in the Northern
states." Still later M. R. Harrington (Jour. Am. Folk-lore,
xvi, 37, 1903) notes the occurrence in many individuals of both Indian and
Negro somatic characters. These Shinnecock evidently have not been
so completely
Africanized as some authorities believe. The remnant of the Montauk in East
Hampton are reported by W. W. Tooker (Ind. Place-names, iv, 1889) to
be
mixed with Negroes, though still recognizable by their aboriginal features. The
region of Chesapeake bay furnishes evidences of Indian-Negro intermixture. The
fact, pointed out by Brinton (Am. Antiq., ix, 352, 1887), that the list of the
numerals 1-10 given as Nanticoke in a manuscript of Pyrlaeus, the missionary
to the Mohawk, dating from 1790, is really Mandingo or a closely related
African language, indicates contact or intermixture.
Of the Pamunkev and Mattapony of Virginia, Col. Aylett
(Rep. Ind., U. S. Census 1890, 602) states that there has been a considerable
mixture of white and Negro blood, principally the former. Traces of Indian
blood are noticeable, according to G. A. Townsend (Scribner's Mag., no. 72,
515, 1571), in many of the freeborn Negroes of the east shore of Maryland.
According to Mooney (Am. Anthrop., iii, 132, 1890), "there
is not now a native full-blood Indian Speaking his own language from Delaware bay to Pamlico
sound," those who claim to he Indians having much Negro blood.
We find
not only
Indiana-Negro intermixture, but also the practice of Negro slavery among the
Indians of the south Atlantic and Gulf states. The Melungeons of Hancock County,
Tenn., but formerly resident in North Carolina, are said to be "a mixture of
white, Indian, and Negro" (Am. Anthrop., ii, 347, 1889). The so-called Croatan of North Carolina and Redbones of South Carolina seem to be of the same
mixture. The holding of Negro slaves by the tribes of the Carolinas led to
considerable intermarriage. There has been much Negro admixture among the Seminole from an early period, although the remnant still living in Florida is
of comparatively pure Indian blood. Of the other Indians of Muskhogean stock the
Creeks seem to have most miscegenation, fully one-third of the tribe
having perceptible Negro admixture. In the time of De Soto a "queen" of the Yuchi ran away with one of his
Negro slaves. Estevanico, the famous companion of Cabeza de Vaca, the explorer, in 1528-36,
was a Negro, and the importance of
Negro companions of Spanish explorers has been discussed by Wright
(Am.
Anthrop., iv, 217-28, 1902). Of
Algonquian peoples the Shawnee, and the Chippewa of Minnesota, etc., furnish
some cases of Indian-Negro intermarriage, the fathers Negro, the mothers Indian.
The Canadian Tuscarora of the
Iroquoian stock are said to have some little
Negro blood among them, and Grinnell reports a few persons of evident
Negro
blood among the Piegan and Kainah. Some of the Indian tribes of the plains and
the far west have taken a dislike to the Negro, and he often figures
to disadvantage in their myths and legends. Marcy, in 1853, reports this of the Comanche,
and in 1891 the present writer found it true to a certain extent of
the Kutenai of south east British Columbia.
Nevertheless, a few
cases of intermarriage are reported from this region. The Caddo,
former resident, of Louisiana and east Texas, appear to have truth Negro
blood, and on the other hand
it is probable that many of the negroes of the whole lower Atlantic and Gulf
region have much of
Indian blood. Lewis and Clark reported that some of the north west Indians, for
mysterious reasons, got their Negro servant to consort with the Indian women, so
much were they taken with him. According to Swanton the richest man among the Skidegate Haida is a
Negro. In the Indian Negro half-breed, as a rule, the Negro
type of features seems to predominate. The relation of the folklore of the
Negroes in America to that of the American aborigines has been the
subject of not
a little discussion. In regard to the "Uncle Remus" stories, Crane
(Pop. Sci.
Mo., xviii, 324-33, 1881) and Gerber (Jour. Am. Folk-lore, vi, 245-57, 1893)
assume the African origin of practically all these myths, and hold that such
borrowing as has taken place has been from the Negroes by the Indians. Powell
(Harris, Uncle Remus, introd., 1895) and Mooney
(19th Rep. B. A. E., 232-34,
1900) entertain the opinion that a considerable portion of the myths in
question are indigenous with the Indians of south east United States.
The latter points out
that "in all the southern colonies Indian slaves were bought and sold and kept
in servitude and worked in the fields side by side with Negroes up to the time
of the Revolution." The conservatism of the Indian and his dislike or contempt
for the Negro must have prevented his borrowing much, while the imitativeness
of the latter and his love for comic stories led him, Mooney thinks, to absorb
good deal from the Indian. He also holds that the idea that such stories are
necessarily of Negro origin is due largely to the common but mistaken notion
that the Indian has no sense of humor. Additional Indian History
Resources:
The books presented are for their
historical value only and are not
the opinions of the Webmasters of
the site.
Handbook of American Indians, 1906
Indian Tribal History
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