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That was going great till the last few paragraphs. Odd theory, that people would be trying to “pass” for Indian to escape the terrors of being Black in the days of slavery. Odd seeing as how dangerous it was in that period and place to be Indian. Obviously he’s projecting a modern perspective onto another time.
How frustrating considering how fascinating and poignant the rest of the material is.
It irritates me too, more and more. I just got a taste of it from another direction. I just re-read an article written by a black author discounting the “Blackfoot” identification as some euphemism for mulatto people who’d rather pass for NDN than be identified as Black.
Now let me make this clear. My husband and my children all pass AT LEAST the one drop rule for “black” so obviously I have no problem, as a “white” person, identifying myself with “black” people, but it still irritates the heck out of me to have somebody tell me some of my ancestors were something they just plain WEREN’T.
If they were African-derived, I’d be DEE-lighted, but the whole POINT of all this is that my side of the family is sick of being dictated to either whitewash, or in this case, blackwash, some of its members, which, in effect, negates their existence. It comes down to being forced to “throw away” some of your ancestors — a gross and unnatural act. But this is routinely expected of the majority of Americans, black or white.
My good friend, Thomas McElwain, lives in Finland now, though a WV Native who spoke Appalachian Iroquois as a child. He says he’s observed that every country has its area of insanity, that to an outsider is totally bizarre, and this country’s insanity is around race. All of our constructs about color revolve around 18th legal and social institutions put into place to legalize and maintain the hereditary slavery of African derived people. We’re all still kow towing to these conventions as if our daily lives were dictated by an auction block. CRAZZZZZZY.
I emailed Paul and asked him to come over and explain his position. He seems to be implying that most TRI’s had no Indian ancestry or what Indian ancestry they did have should be discounted.
Barry
Fasincinating…This seems the perfect place to share this observation of Herman Melville’s trip on the Mississippi during the 1800’s…Herman Melville wrote this description of his fellow passengers: “[There were] natives of all sorts, and foreigners; men of business and men of pleasure; parlor men and backwoodsmen; farm-hunters and fame-hunters, hieress-hunters, gold-hunters, buffalo-hunters….Fine ladies in slippers, and moccasined [Indian women]; northern speculators and eastern philosophers; English, Irish, German, Scotch, Danes; Santa Fe traders in striped blankets…[and] Mississippi cotton planters; Quakers in full drab,…slaves…and young Spanish creoles.” And one could safely assume this scenario replicted itself over and over in the large port cities of the Southeast and any major trade center.
I, too, have read, with dismay, some attempt to classify tri-racials as Black and White only in modern research. Some of these “researchers” are tri-racials themselves. Funny thing, I keep noticing the regional differences regarding race. In Texas and Kansas, one drop of Indian blood and cultural adherence made you Indian…until 1870 or so, regardless of the other racial mixture (and even more so about the time of the Dawes). What is more disheartening to me is the mistreatment of Black Indians today that are finding their way home after so many decades and having to barge down the doors because no one is answering. Disgusting. It seems that the only history worth accounting regarding interracial relations is that either between White and Red, or White and Black. I mean, people just don’t get it…either those in Africa, Europe, or here. The reason Black people look like they do and are so easily distinguishable from non-Arab mixed tribes in Africa is the FACT that we are mainly tri-racials. So many of us possess more Indian blood than White and it has not been accounted for. Shame…another way to perpetuate the genocidal policies against Indians that unfortunately is being carried on today. You can’t know how many ‘close’ African friends that privately told me they are sick and tired of hearing BLack Americans boast Indian blood. In one occasion, and gritting my teeth from the shock of the words, I spilled out my Red existence to them and was “politely” told that no other blood mattered <> the African . Well, seems like they, too, are shuffling and whisteling dixie. One of dese days, Iz gon’ join an Afukin talkin’ group an’ tellum’ juz whut Iz be thinkin’ bout being Black Indian! Bet de ‘fufu’ gon’ hit da fan den…ahuh huh huh! Geez…..
MmeTroislangues
You go on and tell it. I know what you’re saying.
If the Nazis had won the war and it was 300 years later and they were now held in disrepute in Germany, information was finally coming forward and you found out you were descended from some Jews who went into hiding to avoid the ovens, it might mean a thing or two to you, wouldn’t it? It would if you had any kind of sensibilities at any rate.
And being strong-armed into denying it because you have to comform to a black unity thing is just as insensitive as any of the other dismissals our families have had to deal with over the centuries.
On this road to tracking down who these family members really were there was the point where I realized they “didn’t make it.” There wasn’t any tribe left I could refer to and get a sense of who my old ones were. We were all that was left. Just people like us. Which means we have a big responsibility. The weight’s on us to see they are no longer forgotten and that the record gets set straight, and our families absorb what little bits and pieces we can into our family culture that will commemorate and honor their contribution to who we are.
My second cousin’s genealogy book on our family is called “My Pioneer Families” and she didn’t realize what a mouthful that was. Those mixed-blood people pushed into no-man’s land frontiers for a century or so WERE the American pioneers to a very considerable degree. They made this place, it’s ours, and it’s theirs. And it’s time they got credit for it, and we’re the ones who have to do it.
Ahooooo! Miss Linda. And as I heard, Hitler was part Jewish his darn self…with obvious semetic features, didn’t he? I used to wonder as a child why this man ranted and raved about Aryans (which originate as darkies in the Himmalayas, Indians!) and how he possessed none of those physical nor supposed intellectual “qualities.” I mean, how could an intelligent human being dare think he could defy God etc. and murder millions of innocent people?
Wow. there are so many boards and sub-boards here that I don’t know rightly which board this belongs on. So, I’ll just leave it here.
First of all, I’m new here. I just discovered this site last Monday. What’s eeriely coincidental is that I just saw Fort Christanna a week ago for the first time.
Let me explain. A little over a year ago, I got interested in my family history. (Well, I’ve always been very interested in my genealogy, but I never actually DID anything about it. Now, I’m actively exploring it.) I’m half Coharie Indian and half Lumbee Indian. I’ve traced over three quarters of my ancestors back to their births around 1750 or 1775 or so. However, it’s this mysterious and shrouded time between about 1675 to 1750 that seems closed off to my prying eye. I can’t seem to penetrate the barrier. Except in one or two cases, it seems I’m always about two or three generations away from linking my relatives with documented tribal Indian. It’s very frustrating because I’m so tantalizingly close in several instances. Here’s one example: We have a very strong oral tradition of our ancestors having come from Roanoke. Now, most of my current relatives take that to mean Roanoke Island; which leads to the Lost Colony theory. But I don’t agree with the Lost Colony theory. I think our ancestors were trying to say that they came from Roanoke RIVER. Now, Roanoke River, where it flows through the boundries of early 1700s Bertie County, and Roanoke River, where it crosses the Virginia & North Carolina line, were places the Sapony and other tribes (Tuscarora, Meherrin, and Nottoway, etc.) stayed at one time or another. Then I discover my Simmons surname among white men living near and buying Nottoway land from Nottoway Indian chiefs. And I discover my Jacobs surname in a last will and testament written by a white Indian trader, Robert Hix, who lived very very near to Fort Christanna, and who left some land to his Jacobs son-in-law.
Anyway, that’s what I mean by fustratingly tantalizingly close. Now, as I was starting to say, I first found out about Fort Christanna about six months ago. So, when I visited my parents in N.C. last week, I decided to veer off I-95 at Emporia, VA and go see if I could find the old fort. Well, I did! And it was such a thrill. Just knowing that I was standing on the same ground that in all likelyhood, several of my ancestors stood. Anyhow, my son and I took pictures of ouselves standing next to the cannon. The cannon and the stone marker are all that’s there. However, we met a local man (a county employee) by the name of Jimmy Jones, who just happened to be there eating his lunch. Mr. Jones showed us numerous pits all around the area where some private archaelogists are digging for artifacts.
Anyway, so when I got home from vacation this past Monday, I did yet another search for Fort Christanna, and lo and behold, I discover THIS website. (I don’t know how I missed this website before, but I did.) Anyway, I’m glad to have found this website and forum and hope to contribute as I’m able.
Well, I seem to be rambling, so I’ll close this post.
p.s. – What does NDN mean? I’ve seen this acronyn here many times without an explanatory first citation. Thanks.
Well, I thought I posted a response to Craig re: Indian slavery on another sub-message board, but it appears to not have taken.
Briefly, what I said was that Indian slavery was quite extensive in the southern colonies of what was to become the USA. Some say that Indian slavery was about half that of African-American slavery. I also said that that accounts for the difference in appearance between African-Americans and Africans. For indeed, if you start with a base of 66% African slaves and 33% Indian slaves, and carry the “issue” of these unions forward anywhere from 8 to 12 generations, you wind up with today’s African-American. Therefore, in all probability, virtually every African-American alive today has one or more Indian ancestors. Another way of saying the same thing is that with the exception of several tribes of eastern Indians, and with the exception of the numerous tri-racial isolate communities which dot the eastern United States, the legacy of the eastern Indians was that they were absorbed into the Black race.
Correction. In the interest of accuracy, it must be said that a fair amount of eastern Indians were also absorbed into the White race.
Thus, after many generations, the descendants were now no longer Indian. They’d become either White or Black. The only eastern Indians who retained their Indian identity were either: (1) Those Indians fortunate enough to have negotiated a treaty and gained reservation land, or (2) Those tri-racial isolate communities who self identified as Indian exclusively.
Oh yes, now I remember why I wanted to post in the first place.
Is there a list of the names of those 70 or so Indian students that The Rev. Mr. Charles Griffin taught at Fort Christanna?
Or, is there a list of any of the names of any of the Indian residents of Fort Christanna?
If there is such a list, where is it? At William and Mary College? Or, at the state archives in Richmond? Or, somewhere else?
And, if at the state archives, what category would it be under?
Has anyone searched for such a list(s)?
Thanks.
Hello Roy! Welcome. Thanks for letting us know right off the bat so much about you. Coincidentally, I was just reading last week about how the Lumbee were initially Saponi, so it’s nice seeing you piecing that in from your end. My mother-in-law’s family has lived as a tri-racial isolate within the bounds of Fort Christiana reservation for as long as anybody knows. We love going there. Did you follow the road down to the river? Some of the documents say our people lived by the river, so it’s nice walking down there and thinking maybe this is ground zero. Nice, fairly old growth woods.
I know exactly what you mean about that blank period in the historical record. I imagine we all find that. We had a discussion awhile back about the names of students at the school, with some people looking into it. I believe what they found is that there was never a list of Mr. Griffin’s students, and the list of students at William and Mary are believed to have burned up in a fire there at one point. Was that you Crystal? Or Emma?
TroisLanguage — yes, there are stories Hitler was part Jewish, certainly does NOT look like any kind of Aryan ideal. Ugly little sociopath. There are plenty of people as sick as him running around. It’s unbelievable when they get support from a whole country and find plenty of cohorts in playing out their psychotic fantasies.
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