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The Deliveryman: An Ill-Fitting Tongue
Thursday, April 3, 2008
An Ill-Fitting Tongue
Today I attended a guest speaker seminar about radio and the internet and learned about Melungeons, an ethnic group of mixed-race people living in Appalachia. They are generally considered a tri-racial mix of European, African, and Native American descent, though hereditary lines vary from family to family. In his study, the researcher found that various Melungeon people living throughout the region and in diaspora had sort of found each other through the internet after a few of them had linked up while studying their genealogy. They have had several annual gatherings since.
This is an interesting group, certainly marginalized -- as the researcher put it, they were 'other' to the 'others,' spited even among the maligned Appalachian and Black populations. I realized as I looked them up this evening that I served my mission in a couple places with Melungeon populations. If I met any at the time, I wasn't aware of it.
[Continued on other topics]
Showing posts with label Tri-Racial Mix. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Tri-Racial Mix. Show all posts
04 April 2008
17 March 2008
Ariela Gross | "Of Portuguese Origin": Litigating Identity and Citizenship among the "Little Races" in Nineteenth-Century America
Ariela Gross "Of Portuguese Origin": Litigating Identity and Citizenship among the "Little Races" in Nineteenth-Century America Law and History Review, 25.3 The History Cooperative
ABSTRACT: The history of race in the nineteenth-century United States is often told as a story of black and white in the South, and white and Indian in the West, with little attention to the intersection between black and Indian. This article explores the history of nineteenth-century America's "little races"—racially ambiguous communities of African, Indian, and European origin up and down the eastern seaboard. These communities came under increasing pressure in the years leading up to the Civil War and in its aftermath to fall on one side or the other of a black-white color line. Drawing on trial records of cases litigating the racial identity of the Melungeons of Tennessee, the Croatans/Lumbee of North Carolina, and the Narragansett of Rhode Island, this article looks at the differing paths these three groups took in the face of Jim Crow: the Melungeons claiming whiteness; the Croatans/Lumbee asserting Indian identity and rejecting association with blacks; the Narragansett asserting Indian identity without rejecting their African origins. Members of these communities found that they could achieve full citizenship in the U.S. polity only to the extent that they abandoned their self-governance and distanced themselves from people of African descent.
ABSTRACT: The history of race in the nineteenth-century United States is often told as a story of black and white in the South, and white and Indian in the West, with little attention to the intersection between black and Indian. This article explores the history of nineteenth-century America's "little races"—racially ambiguous communities of African, Indian, and European origin up and down the eastern seaboard. These communities came under increasing pressure in the years leading up to the Civil War and in its aftermath to fall on one side or the other of a black-white color line. Drawing on trial records of cases litigating the racial identity of the Melungeons of Tennessee, the Croatans/Lumbee of North Carolina, and the Narragansett of Rhode Island, this article looks at the differing paths these three groups took in the face of Jim Crow: the Melungeons claiming whiteness; the Croatans/Lumbee asserting Indian identity and rejecting association with blacks; the Narragansett asserting Indian identity without rejecting their African origins. Members of these communities found that they could achieve full citizenship in the U.S. polity only to the extent that they abandoned their self-governance and distanced themselves from people of African descent.
29 October 2007
Racial mixtures of the Upper South
"Our Legacy:Racial mixtures of the Upper South," Columnists - HometownAnnapolis.com, By Janice Hayes-Williams, For The Capital. Published October 25, 2007. Follow link for full article.
Excerpt:
The ethnicity of many blacks in the United States and in particular Maryland can be tied to the Indian population that was removed from this area hundreds of years ago. Relations between blacks and Indians can be traced back to the 1600's with the emergence of slavery.
Excerpt:
The relationship between the colonists and the Native Americans began somewhat agreeable but diminished in less than 200 years. Because of the intermarriages of Native Americans with whites and blacks, 17th, 18th, 19th and 20th century racial categories evolved.
Excerpt:
In Maryland counties such as St. Mary's, Charles, Prince George's, and Calvert there were large numbers of individuals that were not of two races but three. The Catholics kept very good records and called these people Indians, partly because of were they lived. Anthropologists called them "Wesort's;" census enumerators called them mulattoes and today sociologists call them "Tri-Racial Isolates." During the 18th and 19th centuries these individuals in Maryland were also called "Free People of Color," "Free Negro" or mulatto.
Throughout the South there are numerous tri-racial isolate groups formerly enumerated as mulattoes; they are: "Brass Ankles" of South Carolina, "Guineas" of West Virginia, "Haliwas" and "Lumbees" of North Carolina, "Melungeons" of Tennessee and Kentucky, "Red Bones" of South Carolina and Louisiana and "Turks" also of South Carolina.
A few summers ago on a trip to Point Lookout here in Maryland, I had the opportunity to see one of the original muster rolls of soldiers who came from Blackistone Island in St Mary's County, now called Clements's Island. Most interesting was the fact that the men who came from Blackistone Island to fight during the Civil War listed their race not as White, Negro or mulatto, but "Griffe." Because many of these men had the last name Blackistone, I called Mr. Blackstone here in Annapolis and asked him "What in the world is a Griffe?"
He explained without hesitation that these were the people that inhabited Blackistone Island for 200 years and were of three races - European, African and Indian, a tri-racial isolate. Mr. Blackstone is a descendant of these people.
Excerpt:
The ethnicity of many blacks in the United States and in particular Maryland can be tied to the Indian population that was removed from this area hundreds of years ago. Relations between blacks and Indians can be traced back to the 1600's with the emergence of slavery.
Excerpt:
The relationship between the colonists and the Native Americans began somewhat agreeable but diminished in less than 200 years. Because of the intermarriages of Native Americans with whites and blacks, 17th, 18th, 19th and 20th century racial categories evolved.
Excerpt:
In Maryland counties such as St. Mary's, Charles, Prince George's, and Calvert there were large numbers of individuals that were not of two races but three. The Catholics kept very good records and called these people Indians, partly because of were they lived. Anthropologists called them "Wesort's;" census enumerators called them mulattoes and today sociologists call them "Tri-Racial Isolates." During the 18th and 19th centuries these individuals in Maryland were also called "Free People of Color," "Free Negro" or mulatto.
Throughout the South there are numerous tri-racial isolate groups formerly enumerated as mulattoes; they are: "Brass Ankles" of South Carolina, "Guineas" of West Virginia, "Haliwas" and "Lumbees" of North Carolina, "Melungeons" of Tennessee and Kentucky, "Red Bones" of South Carolina and Louisiana and "Turks" also of South Carolina.
A few summers ago on a trip to Point Lookout here in Maryland, I had the opportunity to see one of the original muster rolls of soldiers who came from Blackistone Island in St Mary's County, now called Clements's Island. Most interesting was the fact that the men who came from Blackistone Island to fight during the Civil War listed their race not as White, Negro or mulatto, but "Griffe." Because many of these men had the last name Blackistone, I called Mr. Blackstone here in Annapolis and asked him "What in the world is a Griffe?"
He explained without hesitation that these were the people that inhabited Blackistone Island for 200 years and were of three races - European, African and Indian, a tri-racial isolate. Mr. Blackstone is a descendant of these people.
16 September 2007
"Sumter County, S.C. Turks"
U.S. JOURNAL: "SUMTER COUNTY, S.C. TURKS," The New Yorker
By Calvin Trillin
Published March 8, 1969, p. 104
Abstract from The New Yorker Online Archives:
U.S. JOURNAL about a group of people living in Sumter County, S.C. called Turks. They are not really Turks. Throughout the Southeast there have always been communities of people who constitute a third race, usually discriminated against by whites and almost always segregating themselves from Negroes. They are dark-skinned people of mysterious origin. Most of the groups apparently descend from remnants of Indian tribes that long ago intermarried with whites and with freed or escaped slaves. "The men are mostly of the small-farmer or tenant class and most of them are poor," an article in the Columbia "State" said in 1928. Every Truk is certain that he is white and certain that his neighbors are ready to believe that he is part Negro. The founders of this community were 2 men who fought with Gen. Thomas Sumter during the American Revolution and were given land by the Genl. around his plantation. They were a Frenchman called Scott and Joseph Benenhaley, who is usually identified as a Moor or an Arab. The Turks were discriminated against and segregated until a few years after World War II. At first they succeeded in getting their children admitted into Hillcrest, the local white high school; later into grade school. Eventuall most local white students went to a private high school, but some white students, not local, from Shaw Air Force Base, do go to it.
By Calvin Trillin
Published March 8, 1969, p. 104
Abstract from The New Yorker Online Archives:
U.S. JOURNAL about a group of people living in Sumter County, S.C. called Turks. They are not really Turks. Throughout the Southeast there have always been communities of people who constitute a third race, usually discriminated against by whites and almost always segregating themselves from Negroes. They are dark-skinned people of mysterious origin. Most of the groups apparently descend from remnants of Indian tribes that long ago intermarried with whites and with freed or escaped slaves. "The men are mostly of the small-farmer or tenant class and most of them are poor," an article in the Columbia "State" said in 1928. Every Truk is certain that he is white and certain that his neighbors are ready to believe that he is part Negro. The founders of this community were 2 men who fought with Gen. Thomas Sumter during the American Revolution and were given land by the Genl. around his plantation. They were a Frenchman called Scott and Joseph Benenhaley, who is usually identified as a Moor or an Arab. The Turks were discriminated against and segregated until a few years after World War II. At first they succeeded in getting their children admitted into Hillcrest, the local white high school; later into grade school. Eventuall most local white students went to a private high school, but some white students, not local, from Shaw Air Force Base, do go to it.
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