An Omitted

History

The Black Indian In

America

Hawzienawit Gebremedhin

An Omitted History

2

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-Indians-

Explore-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>.