Mixed Race Studies

Pocahontas: The Evolution of an American Narrative

Cambridge University Press
November 1994
276 pages
31 b/w illus
229 x 152 x 16 mm
Paperback ISBN: 9780521469593

Robert S. Tilton, Professor of English
University of Connecticut, Torrington

From the time of its first appearance, the story of Pocahontas has provided the terms of a flexible discourse that has been put to multiple, and at times contradictory, uses. Centering around her legendary rescue of John Smith from the brink of execution and her subsequent marriage to a white Jamestown colonist, the Pocahontas convention became a source of national debate over such broad issues as miscegenation, racial conflict, and colonial expansion. At the same time, Pocahontas became the most frequently and variously portrayed female figure in antebellum literature. Robert S. Tilton draws upon the rich tradition of Pocahontas material to examine why her half-historic, half-legendary narrative so engaged the imaginations of Americans from the earliest days of the colonies through the conclusion of the Civil War. Drawing upon a wide variety of primary materials, Tilton reflects on the ways in which the Pocahontas myth was exploded, exploited, and ultimately made to rationalise dangerous preconceptions about the native American tradition.

• The only study to focus exclusively on the Pocahontas narrative during this period
• Deals with crucial aspects of Indian/white relations, such as interracial marriages, and the place of the Indian in ‘Manifest Destiny’ ideology
• Brings together a number of visual images not elsewhere presented together

Table of Contents

• 1. Miscegenation and the Pocahontas narrative in colonial and federalist America
• 2. The Pocahontas narrative in post-Revolution America
• 3. The Pocahontas narrative in the era of the romantic Indian
• 4. John Gadsby Chapman’s Baptism of Pocahontas
• 5. The figure of Pocahontas in sectionalist propaganda
• Index

Victoria to fly flag in memory of executed Métis leader Louis Riel

Times Colonist
Victoria, British Columbia
2013-11-15

Richard Watts

The infinity-embossed flag of the Métis Nation will fly at municipalities around B.C. as they proclaim Saturday as Louis Riel Day.

Victoria, Langford and Sidney have agreed to the proclamation. Victoria has even agreed to fly the flag of the Métis Nation, a white infinity symbol (a sideways “8”) on a solid blue, black or red background.

Today, at Royal Roads University in the Blue Heron House, Métis culture will be showcased with a short film, bannock and tea, from 10 a.m. to noon.

Bill Bresser, president of Métis Nation Greater Victoria, said the celebration is part of a growing recognition across Canada that now sees Riel, not as an executed villain but as a defender of the Métis.

“He is now recognized not as a traitor but somebody fighting for his people and the rights and property of people that were being taken advantage of,” said Bresser.

Also, Bresser said, Métis people are now being recognized as legitimate builders of the modern country…

Read the entire article here.

Know Louisiana: Storyville (1897-1917)

NolaVie: Life and Culture in New Orleans
2013-11-14

with Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities

Emily Epstein Landau
Department of History
University of Maryland, College Park

As part of a new collaboration with the Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities, NolaVie will spotlight entries from KnowLA.org—the Digital Encyclopedia of Louisiana, including unique events and people in our state’s history.

This month, we commemorate the end of Storyville. On November 12th, 1917, Mayor Martin Behrman acquiesced to pressure from the US Navy and ordered the red light district closed at midnight. Here’s the story, written by Emily Landau.

Created by municipal ordinance in 1897, Storyville was New Orleans’s infamous red-light district. It remained open until 1917, when the federal government shut it down as part of a nationwide crackdown on vice districts. While Storyville was only one of many red-light districts during these years—every major and most minor American cities hosted at least one such district—it stood out for several reasons.

First, New Orleans had long maintained an international reputation for sexual license and a flamboyant disregard of traditional morality. Storyville’s notoriety perpetuated that image of the city and raised it to a new level. Second, New Orleans’s history as a French, and then Spanish, colonial city lent it a foreign feel, even after nearly a century of American rule. This foreign-ness, along with its subtropical climate and large mixed-race population, made New Orleans an exotic enclave within the Deep South.

Storyville took advantage of the city’s colorful history by promoting the availability of both “French” and “octoroon” women in its guidebooks and through tabloid press. “French,” in the context of a sex district, signaled special sexual services; women purported to be one-eighth black were available for the exclusive use of white gentlemen, recalling the antebellum quadroon balls. In addition to so-called octoroons, Storyville further violated the segregation laws by advertising “colored” and later “black” women for the use of white men. Sex across the color line was, according to a prominent citizen in the 1910s, Storyville’s “notorious attraction.”…

Read the entire article here.

Goree: of Slavery, Signares and Foreigners with Cash

dofo kow/ߘߝߏ ߞߏ ߎ/history matters
2013-01-16

Jody Benjamin

Two of the hottest Hollywood films out right now deal with American slavery, “Lincoln” and “Django Unchained.” The history of slavery in the United State is once again in mainstream cultural vogue, this time with A-list directors Stephen Spielberg and Quentin Tarantino putting this difficult subject before popular audiences in new ways.

So it was an interesting time to visit Goree Island, off the coast of Dakar, Senegal. The small volcanic formation off the western tip of Senegal (Dakar’s skyline is clearly visible from the island) was unoccupied when Portuguese traders first came there in the 15th century, using it as a base from which to trade in gold with Africans, but then becoming the first among many Europeans after them to focus on trading slaves.

The settled part of Goree Island is so small you can walk leisurely around it in two hours or so. The biggest chunk of the tourist crowd that travels over daily by ferry from Dakar do just that before returning the same day. Every day. Like clock work. Beginning with the first ferry crosses over about 10:30, ferries arrive every two hours dumping groups of FWC (“Foreigners With Cash”) onto the island famously associated with the Atlantic slave trade—although historians say the island played only a small role, contrary to popular belief…

…There is still much about this house in particular, and the island in general, that I am still learning. But the “Maison des Esclaves” appears to have been owned by Anne Pepin, a Senegalese signare, one of a wealthy class of mulatto women who were critical to business transactions between Africans and Europeans throughout this part of the African coast. (In other words, according to some American black nationalist interpretations, and the old fashioned American racial logic of the “one-drop” rule, I was basically standing in the foyer of a black woman’s house!) It is still unclear who built the house (help me out if you know) whether it was Anne and her husband, or her brother Nicholas. Anne was reportedly the lover to the island’s French governor in the late 18th century, Chevalier de Boufflers, to the apparent humiliation of his wife, Ann Sabran. It was Anne Pepin’s niece, Anna Cola, who is depicted (in the lower left, wearing the white shawl) in an image of the home in 1839 about a generation after Anne Pepin lived.

Usually, the offspring of European men and African women, signares typically became the “local wives” of European traders who were valued for their family connections to local Africans as well as their facility with European language, culture and entree into the transient European society. Signares were frequently slave traders, slave owners and active in any number of other lucrative trades such as the trades in gum Arabic, in cloth and other commodities. Because of their wealth and location within a web of gendered, racialized social and economic relations, signares (from the Portuguese ‘senhora’ or ‘lady’) were often the figurative and literal “belles of the Ball,” on Goree. In coastal settlements from the Senegal river to Freetown, Sierra Leone, they were key figures in trade between Africans and Europeans. Tastemakers, they are often represented in drawings and paintings from the period draped in varied and expensive fabrics and jewelry…

Read the entire article here.

Honoring one of their own

Bucks County Courier Times
Levittown, Pennsylvania
2013-11-13

Phil Gianficaro, News columnist

The inscription on the small old tombstone in the shadow of the majestic oak tree is practically illegible. Weathered and darkened by 148 years, the tablet-shaped marker pales in comparison to others that are more ornate in the Hatboro Baptist Church Cemetery. A noteworthy war veteran from Hatboro, it would seem, deserves a more appropriate remembrance.

Now he has one.

Near that barren oak tree this week, they gathered on a sunny Veterans Day morning to honor one of their own, Barclay J. Stagner, the town’s first man of color to serve in the Civil War. A new tombstone, supplied by the Veterans Administration, was dedicated to Stagner and placed several feet from the old stone and beside the gravestone of his mother, Elizabeth.

“This is a special, long overdue honor,” said David Shannon, Hatboro historian and curator of the cemetery, before a small gathering at the graveside. “While many in the congregation were aware of Barclay, we were intent on letting the community know he existed.”…

…Stagner was born during the time of slavery. He wasn’t a member of the Hatboro Baptist Church, but was a close friend of Union Army Gen. William Davis, who was. That relationship, combined with his light skin color and blue eyes that belied his race, likely helped Stagner get accepted into the Union Army at a time before blacks were recruited or permitted to enlist.

“We don’t know if Barclay was black or what used to be called mulatto, or a mixed race,” Shannon said. “He was likely of mixed race. But because he wasn’t dark skinned, they probably didn’t know.”

Stagner became a sergeant in the 6th Pennsylvania Volunteer Cavalry, and fought in the Battle of Gettysburg. Upon his re-enlistment as a veteran volunteer, he rose to the rank of corporal. He died in Virginia at age 28 on Jan. 3, 1865, and his remains were sent to Hatboro to be interred…

Read the entire article here.

“Free Negroes” and “Mulattoes” of Gloucester County and the Tidewater Area of Virginia Prior to 1800

Renegade South: histories of unconventional southerners
2013-08-01

The following guest essay by Wayne K. Driver expands upon my own research on the Morris Family of Gloucester County, Virginia.

Vikki Bynum, Moderator

By Wayne K. Driver

Throughout my years of researching my family from Gloucester County and the Tidewater Area of Virginia, I have noted that several families, including my own, were listed as “free Negroes” or “mulattoes” prior to 1800. This discovery ignited my interest; I wanted to know more about these families and how they fit into a society in which most people of African descent were slaves and where those of European descent dominated. I wondered if these free people of color had any rights, if they owned property or had the freedom to move about without being harassed.  Since my focus was on the years prior to 1800, I also wondered how they felt about the Revolutionary War.  Which side did they support? Which side promised a better future for them?

Families with the names ALLMOND/ALLMAN, BLUFORD, DRIVER, FREEMAN, GOWEN/ GOING, HEARN, KING, LEMON, MEGGS, MONOGGIN, and MORRIS are identified in various documents as living free from slavery.  “Free” did not necessarily mean, however, that they were as free as those of full European ancestry.  These “free” people did not have slave masters, but they did have limitations place upon them and hardships that would not be understood by my generation.

The above families of color, as well as others not cited in this essay, contributed to America by serving in wars, participating in religious movements, and working in many trades. At the same time, they strove for greater freedom of access to education, property ownership, and social equality.  Too often, these pioneers are forgotten in the history books; rarely are they recognized for their work in shaping the counties in which they lived.  When I drive through Gloucester, to my knowledge there is no physical memorial that bears witness to their service in the Revolutionary War, or their contributions to their communities.  I can find all types of negative propaganda concerning “free Negroes,” such as recommendations for their forced removal from the county, or punishment for not paying taxes. My hope is that someday the leaders of these communities will recognize free families of color and teach generations to come about their positive contributions…

Read the entire article here.

How Diversity Will Alter Black History

The Root
2013-11-06

Lynette Holloway

A changing population will help shed more light on America’s multiracial past.

(The Root)—This is part 3 of a three-part series. To see the previous stories, here and here.

Time was, the social construct of the one-drop rule made United States history either black or white. The rule emerged from the South as a way to facilitate slavery and implement Jim Crow segregation. But while the courts and the civil rights movement have dismantled legal segregation, vestiges of the one-drop rule still linger.

But now, 7 million Americans self-identify as multiracial, quickly changing the meaning of who is black, white, Asian, Hispanic or other. For some, it raises questions about how history is perceived by future generations, black history specifically. Will there still be a need for Black History Month?

“We’ve been biracial or a multiracial country since the 17th century,” Bernard W. Kinsey told The Root. He and his wife, Shirley, are touring their Kinsey Collection, a national museum exhibit of African-American art and history dating back to the 1600s.

“America is the only country in the world where having one drop of black blood still makes you black,” Kinsey continued. “We operate on this notion of color as a basis of identity in America. I’ve been to 94 countries, and no other country operates quite like America does with this notion of color.”

Douglas A. Blackmon, the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Slavery by Another Name: The Re-Enslavement of Black Americans From the Civil War to World War II, told The Root that a multiracial America will only bring to the surface what has been hidden for centuries.

“All American history has always been multiracial, at least certainly since the early 1600s,” Blackmon told The Root. “It’s not a question of whether there has been a multiracial history, but whether it’s been acknowledged or specifically understood…

Read the entire article here.

79-173 Freshman Seminar: Barack Obama and the History of Race in America

Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
Department of History
2013-2014

Well before he was elected the forty-fourth President of the United States, Barack Obama challenged Americans to think anew about the history of race in this country. In this course, we will examine President Obama’s life, writings, and speeches as the foundation for a larger investigation into the history of race and, in particular, the struggle to achieve racial equality within the United States. We will read President Obama’s first biography and several of his key speeches as well as a recent history of the Civil Rights Movement. Our goal will be not only to probe the life and ideas of President Obama but to examine the larger history of race in America. Topics will include the geographic and temporal diversity of the Civil Rights Movement, the shifting meanings of “mixed-race,” race and American foreign policy, the history of racial inequality in housing, education, and employment, affirmative action, and race and immigration.

Written records agree with Melungeon DNA results

Jack Goins’ Melungeon and Appalachian Research
October 2013

William E. Cole
University of Tennessee

Joe Stevenson Looney
University of Tennessee

Written records agree with Core Melungeon DNA Results. The Core Melungeon DNA Project was formed with Family Tree DNA on July 25, 2005. The goal of the project was to determine the origin of the Melungeons and to find matches in the data base. Our project results were submitted to a peer review board and published April 24, 2012 in the Journal of Genetic Genealogy and published by Associated Press reporter Travis Loller in May 2012, the results of the first generation are offspring of Sub-Saharan African men and white women of Northern and central European origin. http://www.jogg.info/72/files/Estes.pdf.

The majority of the male core groups were haplogroup E1b1a Sub-Saharan African and the maternal mtDNA group was European. The first mixed generation was the children from Sub-Saharan African men and white women of Northern and central European origin, the exact date of this mixing is unknown. Some from this first mixed generation eventually intermarried with white settlers in colonial Virginia and took their names. Part of this tri-racial clan may have remained in Colonial Virginia and others migrated to North Carolina who would eventually become known as Melungeons (Calloway Collins told Will Allen Dromgoole the Collins and Gibsons, had stolen those names from white settlers in Virginia where they were living as Indians, before migrating to North Carolina”). Calloway Collins was a great grandson of Benjamin whose origin was African and we also know all Africans took English surnames, even the ones who became slaves…

Read the entire article here.

Blood: The Stuff of Life

House of Anansi Press
2013-10-26
272 pages
5 x 8
Paperback ISBN: 978-1-77089-322-1
eBook ISBN: 978-1-77089-324-5

Lawrence Hill

In this year’s CBC Massey Lectures, bestselling author Lawrence Hill offers a provocative examination of the scientific and social history of blood, and on the ways that it unites and divides us today.

Blood runs red through every person’s arteries and fulfills the same functions in every human being. The study of blood has advanced our understanding of biology and improved medical treatments, but its cultural and social representations have divided us perennially. Blood pulses through religion, literature, and the visual arts. Every time it pools or spills, we learn a little more about what brings human beings together and what pulls us apart. For centuries, perceptions of difference in our blood have separated people on the basis of gender, race, class, and nation. Ideas about blood purity have spawned rules about who gets to belong to a family or cultural group, who enjoys the rights of citizenship and nationality, what privileges one can expect to be granted or denied, whether you inherit poverty or the right to rule over the masses, what constitutes fair play in sport, and what defines a person’s identity.

Blood: The Stuff of Life is a bold meditation on blood as an historical and contemporary marker of identity, belonging, gender, race, class, citizenship, athletic superiority, and nationhood.