Black and Red: Discovering the Kinship of the Past, Establishing a Greater Future

Black and Red: Discovering the Kinship of the Past, Establishing a Greater FutureA Study By Nicole N. Harvin

Before the Europeans

Cultural Similarities Before European colonization in Africa and North America, the traditional cultures of the two groups contained striking similarities despite being an ocean away.

Cultural SimilaritiesBoth cultures had very strong oral traditions Native American and traditional African populations tend to have collectivist mindsets as opposed to individualistic A strong emphasis on being one with nature is seen in the religious ideologies of both groupsBoth groups were primarily matrilineal as opposed to patrilineal Strong belief in shamanism Heavy cultural emphasis placed on burial and burial rights

Mutual Bondage

Most men today cannot conceive of a freedom that does not involve somebody's slavery. W.E.B. Du Bois

Enslavement of Native Americans in Europe According to the book Africans and Native Americans: The Language of Race and the Evolution of Red -Black People, there have been many reports of Native Americans being kidnapped by various European groups prior to the 1500s, specifically from Newfoundland and Greenland. Enslavement of indigenous North American populations intensified significantly with the arrival of Christopher Columbus in The New World.

When your highnesses so command, they can all be carried off to Castile or held captive in the island itself, since with fifty men they would be all kept in subjection and forced to do whatever may be wished. Christopher Columbus (to the King and Queen of Spain upon presenting them with abducted Native Americans )

In any case, at least 3,000 Americans are known to have been shipped to Europe between 1493 and 1501... - Africans and Native Americans: The Language of Race and the Evolution of Red Black People

Enslavement in the New World According to Africans and Native Americans: The Language of Race and the Evolution of Red Black People, Native Americans and Africans encountered each other as slaves in EuropeThe two groups really became integrated, however, when chattel slavery was introduced in the Americas.A chattel slave is who is owned for life and whose children and children's children are automatically enslaved. (This differs significantly from debt slavery or contract slavery.)

Atlantic Slave Trade

Harmonious Relations

In the Americas, Europeans feared interactions between Africans and indigenous peoples In a report made in 1503, Nicolas de Ovando, the Governor of Hispaniola, mentioned that indiginous peoples would escape their European captors and return to help free enslaved Africans. The first major slave revolt (which occured in Hispaniola in 1522) was organized by a coalition of Africans and indiginous peoples.

In what is currently known as the United States, there were strict laws against the marriage of whites and blacks as well as legislation against whites marrying Native Americans*, but there were no laws against African slaves marrying Native AmericansAccording to the book That the Blood Stay Pure, Because membership in American Indian societies was based on kinship systems and cultural criteria, exogamy was a cultural tradition.In fact, by 1830, over half the American Indian population living east of the Mississippi River had Black and Caucasian blood.

*This quickly changed after the marriage of John Rolfe and Pocahontas, making it fashionable among Whites to have Native blood.

The Effects of Eugenics

a science that tries to improve the human race by controlling which people become parents Merriam-Webster Dictionary Eugenics is defined as:

Thomas Jefferson was obsessed with the idea of eugenics and race purity and perpetuated this idea into American culture, especially in his home state of VirginiaJefferson spoke heavily of the noble savage that, according to That the Blood Stay Pure, gave Native Americans the status of a degraded white man. These ideological ideas did little to deter relations between Native Americans and African slaves...until legislation came into play

The first difference [between whites and blacks] which strikes us is that of color. . . . The difference is fixed in nature, and is as real as if its seat and cause were better known to us. And is this difference of no importance? Is it not the foundation of a greater or less share of beauty inthe two races? Are not the fine mixtures of red and white, the expressions of every passion by greater or less suffusions of color in the one, preferable to that eternal monotony, which reigns in the countenances, that immoveable veil of black which covers all the emotions of the other race?Add to these, flowing hair, a more elegant symmetry of form, their own judgment in favor of the whites, declared by their preference of them, as uniformly as is the preference of the orangutan for the black women over those of his own species. The circumstance of superior beauty, is thought worthy attention in the propagation of our horses, dogs, and other domestic animals; why not in that of man? Thomas Jefferson, Notes on the State of Virginia

During the 1700s and 1800, the one drop rule, or the idea that one drop of Negro blood made a person black, became a prevalent component of American racial ideology.While there were still no anti-miscegenation laws in place for African Americans marrying Native Americans, there were devastating consequences.European settlers, hell-bent on retrieving Native lands, began efforts to classify Native Americans as free Negroes or simply Negro depending on their degree of African blood.

According to That the Blood Stay Pure, In 1866, the governors admonitions became codified with the Virginia General Assemblys first official definition of Indian: every person having one-fourth or more Negro blood shall be deemed a colored person having one-fourth or more of Indian blood shall be deemed an Indian. These laws had devastating effects on mixed Native American and African slave communities that had been living in harmony for years. In an attempt to re-claim their identity as Indian, Native Americans began trying to cut ties with the African American community, even it meant cutting off members of their own families. One tribe that put up a particularly aggressive fight to keep their identity as Indian was the Pamunkey tribe.

The Pamunkey tribe had many members who were either mixed with African American or fully African American. White Americans attempted to seize their lands by claiming that they were so intermixed with African slaves that they could no longer be considered Indian. The Pamunkey tribe was able to keep their reservation, but they still faced severe disapproval from Whites who considered them to be colored. Their guns were even confiscated in 1857 by White men who claimed they werent allowed to own firearms because they were colored

Members of the Pamunkey tribe stopped attending their usual church due to high number of black members, and Pamunkey tribal laws prohibited members from marrying African AmericansThis American racial system was already entrenched into the minds of other tribes like the Powhatan people, and now the Pamunkey tribe openly expressed their disdain for the Black men and women who were once their friends and familyThis disdain was only made worse by the infamous Racial Integrity Act passed in 1924. The law required that every persons race be recorded at birth and that one could only fall into two categories: white and colored.This disdain towards African Americans is still held by many tribes in the United States to this day

Modern Issues

In the years since anti-miscegenation laws and the RIA, Native American and African American Populations have faced many of the same socioeconomic and political issues.One prevalent issue in both communities is that of substance abuse.

While it has been statistically proven that Whites are more likely than African Americans to use most illegal drugs, these substances have still made a dramatic impact on African American culture. The American crack epidemic, taking place in the years between 1984 and the early 1990s, wreaked havoc on African American populations, most prevalently in New York and California. Between 1984 and 1994, the homicide rate for black men doubled. There was also an increase in fetal death rates, babies born below a typical birth rate, and black children in the foster care system.

While crack cocaine has waged a vicious war on the Black community, alcoholism has been a highly influential epidemic for Native Americans. 12% of the deaths among American Indians and Alaska Natives are alcohol-relatedThe rate of fetal alcohol spectrum disorder in Native American populations is more than seven times the national average.

Whether it be the in South Side of Chicago or the Pine Ridge reservation in South Dakota, Native Americans and African Americans both face crippling poverty, limited resources, and a lack of properly funded education. In order to deal with these issues, African Americans and Native Americans have unfortunately turned to gang culture as a means of survival.

A typical Pine Ridge home

Police Brutality

A prevalent issue that has become dominant in mainstream American culture recently is police brutality. Recently, the #BlackLivesMatter movement has sought to bring issues of police brutality on African American peoples to the forefront of pop culture and politics. Unfortunately, the plight of Native Americans and their own struggles with the police have been all but ignored by mainstream media outlets. According to the Center on Juvenile and Criminal Justice, police kill Native Americans at a higher rate than any other ethnic group.

So whats the point...?Final Argument and Closing Thoughts

Before European colonization, there were already many key cultural similarities between Native Americans and Africans. Native Americans and Africans suffered together as slaves in Europe as well as in the Americas. And before a racially based class system was established by the European settlers in America, Native Americans and African slaves lived together in harmony.

Anti-miscegenation laws did not directly prohibit African slaves and Native Americans from marrying. What it did do, however, was give Native Americans distrusting attitudes towards Blacks who had previously been their neighbors, friends, and (in many cases) family. By making Blackness something that could tarnish ones Indian identity, a racist government placed barriers between cultures that should have banded together.

Slavery has ended, reservations have been established, but the two groups are still undoubtedly linked through a series of shared social and political issues. Poverty, substance abuse, and a lack of properly funded education are keeping many African Americans and Native Americans in a cycle of poverty. The political and governmental systems in our nation seem determined to keep Natives and Blacks down as well as gentrification, tribal land theft, and police brutality wreak havoc on the groups.

What can be done?

Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.-Martin Luther King Jr.

If we do not hang together, we shall surely hang separately.-Benjamin Franklin

At such a pivotal moment in our nations history, it is finally time for a community to be restored. Natives and African Americans have a long and complicated history together, but our generation can write a new chapter. When we march, we must march together. When petitions are created for new laws that affect our communities, we must sign them together. When the blood of one of our own is unjustly shed, we must hold each others hands and lift one another up in the spirit of our ancestors who staged slave rebellions together. Due to our cultural similarities and shared socioeconomic and political struggles, I am convinced that Native Americans and African Americans should join forces on social activist causes.