BLACK INDIANS DEAN SCHOMBURG

Generations of young minds have been trained to think of

life on the American Frontier as a testimony to white

gallantry. John Wayne whipped Indians and children of

every race rejoiced in this version of the frontier served up

every Saturday afternoon at the movies. But for some

reason I always rooted for the underdog, and still do.

That’s why I wanted the Indians to win those pitched

battles on the big screen. But they never did.

My maternal grandfather, Theodore Warren,

pictured here in Brooklyn New York in 1950

(Photo by Dean Warren Schomburg)

was a Shinnecock Indian but of a darker hue than

normally associated with Native Americans. I had often

wondered why. My later visits to the Shinnecock

reservation on the South Shore of Long Island, New York,

after having seen many of the Shinnecock tribal members

with equally dark skin and remembering the western

movies in my youth where the Indians were never as dark

as my grandfather, caused me to wonder about the source

of this seeming anomaly.

It turns out that the first Africans brought to the

new world by European slave traders probably

arrived in April 1502 on board a ship that brought

the new governor of Hispaniola, Nicolas de

Ovando. Soon after they landed some Africans

escaped to the woods and found a new home

among the Native Americans (Black Indians,

William Katz, Athenaeum Books N.Y. 1986).

The first link of friendship between the two was a

common foe…the Europeans…which was

motivation for an alliance. Since the Native

peoples willingly embraced newcomers to their

villages Africans found they were welcome.

Indians were often willing to accept outsiders to

take advantage of their skills and to enlarge the

tribe. Some Africans took on important roles in

tribal life. They began to identify with their new

friends of the hills, streams and mountains.

Naturally intermarriage took place among the

villagers. The native peoples were not concerned

and seemingly undeterred by the social construct

we call race. Darker skin was no deterrent at that

point in history, although that changed as the

Eurocentric racist ideals gradually took hold over

time and insinuated themselves into the native

population. In fact, Circe Sturm writes in Blood

Politics: Race, Culture and Identity in the Cherokee

Nation of Oklahoma (Berkeley: University of

California, 2002) that “by the late eighteenth

century, in response to various maneuvers on the

part of European colonists, Cherokees had

internalized an understanding of racial differences

and racial prejudice that articulated with Western

views. At the same time, Cherokees manipulated

the existing racial hierarchy, aggressively placing

themselves at the top.” Meantime, British

colonists tried to play one dark race against the

other on the southern frontier..

The Maryland assembly, for example, offered

Indians rewards for recapturing runaway slaves.

So many slaves had fled to the six colonies of the

Iroquois Confederacy that in 1776 a governor of

New York made the leading chiefs promise to

return all fugitives in their villages. In 1764

Hurons, to the North, made the same promise.

The following year Delaware followed suit.

However, there is no word of a single slave ever

being returned by these indigenous hosts.

In the decades between the American revolution

and the civil war, black Indian societies were

reported in New Jersey, New York, Delaware,

Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, South

Carolina, Connecticut, Tennessee and

Massachusetts.

With the abrupt conclusion of Reconstruction in

1877, thousands of blacks made their way from

the South to the West, heading for Kansas,

Arkansas, Oklahoma and Indian territory. These

migrants were seeking to escape from the

onslaught of white racial violence in a period of

escalating attacks, and sought to resettle in a

location where they could find economic

opportunity, demonstrate their self-sufficiency

and preserve their dignity. By the inception of the

Civil War, New England Indian communities had

experienced several generations of intermarriage

with African Americans. (Crossing Waters,

Crossing Worlds, Tiya Miles & Sharon P. Holland,

Duke University Press, 2006.)

As the westward expansion continued, Africans

constituted a significant portion of the population

in California, then under Spanish rule, and mixed

easily with Native Americans. A Spanish census

of 1790 found 18 percent of the population of San

Francisco, 24 percent of San Jose, 20 percent of

Santa Barbara and 18 percent of Monterey could

be traced to black ancestors.

In spite of strenuous efforts (by colonizers) to

promote hatred between Indians and Africans a

surprising number of slaves were harbored within

the Indian communities throughout the colonial

period. In most cases fugitive slaves disappeared

into Indian society where they took Indian wives,

produced children of mixed blood and contributed

to Afro-Indian acculturation in the same fashion

as those slaves who lived with the settlement

Indians in the coastal regions.

The problem of identifying who was an Indian

became complicated with the arrival of European

settlers, traders, missionaries, adventurers and

African slaves. Three conditions resulting from

these contacts were important. First, outsiders

mated with Indian women to produce offspring of

mixed genetic heritage. Second, Indians

sometimes captured blacks and whites and made

them “Indians”. Third some Indians lost their

identity because of assimilation with the outsiders.

Likewise, Indians who did not associate with other

Indians came to be judged as non-Indians.

(Identity in Mashpee, James Clifford, Cambridge

Mass. 1988)

By 1770 there were 2.3 million people living east

of the Allegheny Mountains. 1.7 million were

white, ½ million were black and 100 thousand

were indigenous. What is surprising is that efforts

to keep the races separate were thwarted in a

society where the dominant group was involved in

strenuous attempts to keep its bloodlines from

being “contaminated” (Red,White and Black:The

Peoples of Early America . Gary B. Nash, Prentice-

Hall, Englewood Cliffs N.J., 1982).

Moving ahead to the late 19th century, birth

records of black Indians were often

surreptitiously changed to reflect black only and

eliminated the Native reference. There were

several reasons for this. The federal government

had always attempted to limit the number of

claimants to Indian heritage so that there would

be less of a financial strain on the government’s

resources. After all, the promises made to the

Indians, many of which were never fulfilled,

included health care, job training and other

benefits as a result of having lost their tribal

lands. Even today, the process by which a tribe

or tribal member must substantiate Indian

heritage is complex, involving written records

going back to first contact, proof of tribal

territory and language, and substantiation of

consistent involvement in tribal affairs. Since

most of the record keeping was done by the

colonizers it’s extremely difficult to provide

written proof of many of the Indian claims, and

the oral tradition is deemed by the federal

government as not trustworthy.

Black Indians who declare their heritage are

sometimes subject to ridicule by their African-

American acquaintances, some of whom say to

claim Native American heritage is not authentic,

and simply an effort to boost one’s self esteem. In

current situations, even some Native American

tribes are disputing the authenticity of many black

Indians. It appears to be an effort to limit tribal

numbers, particularly among tribes which have

opened gaming and casino establishments where

some of the proceeds are divided among tribal

members. They claim there is a run on Native

American “wannabees” who would like a share of

the gambling proceeds. On the other side of that

spectrum, during the civil rights era it was

politically incorrect for black folks to declare

anything but an African heritage, and so the

Indian ancestors remained under cover.

I often wish that my grandfather knew that I took

his advice and visited the Shinnecock Reservation,

starting about 20 years ago, and return every

other year for the Powwow. When I see and hear

the tribal members, I see and feel him. I am glad

that his blood is coursing through my veins. I am

angry at the way Native Americans have been

treated in this, their original land, and continue to

struggle. I suppose I can take some solace in the

fact that as of this past December 15th, the Bureau

of Indian Affairs officially recognized the

Shinnecock as a tribe, but given the history of that

Bureau, I’m not so sure what, if any, benefits will

be forthcoming for the tribal members. Let us

hope for the best.