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I saw that someone on the forum had this as a name.
It reminded me that my grandfather said his lineage was Blackfoot,
Black Dutch and Irish.
Does anyone know who Black Dutch are? Who does this reffer to?
Its obviously a term know by others here. What say you?
To me it depends on the context, it can have different meanings. In the context of SaponiTown people it seems to be primarily a term used in an attempt to disguise Native American or possibly tri-racial descent. Many identifying as Black Dutch were German immigrants who migrated from Pennsylvania into the frontiers of Virginia and NC in the 1700s. A likely motive for this identification is fear of being removed from their lands and sent West after the Indian Removal Act of 1830. After this, if families had escaped forced relocation and owned land they would not admit their Native American heritage fearing they would lose their property.
That makes sense.
Especially since my lines predominantly come from PA or VA and then through OH or KY to settle in IN.
My Blackfoot line never listed themselves as anything but white on census records.
In fact, Adam Teal at one point lists his birth state as PA, and another time as unknown.
He did a real good job of losing his trail.
Because of that, it makes it hard to verify who they really were. Sad.
I have both situations.
My fathers family was Pennsylvania Dutch and used the term and my mothers were mixed blood (Native American + Anglo) and also referred to themselves as Black Dutch.
Black Dutch or Black Irish were terms very commonly used out here west of the Mississippi. It was to keep any lands farmed by the so call “black” dutch/irish from being taken and they being arrested for owning it, sent to a reservation, or simply pushed out of the county. It was used by bi and tri racial persons to hide anything but white in their history. As an example, I believe it was around 1860, the state of Missouri claimed they had no American Indians living within the state…Im very sure they had many black irish and dutch however. People from my family had used that term as well….:)
~suthainn
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