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While Thanksgiving has largely transitioned from an afternoon depicting a fictionalized relationship between European settlers and the Natives who inhabited what came to be known as the United States, the holiday is focused on time with family, overeating and giving thanks. It the ideal chance to learn a little more about the Native Americans and the way we are connected to them.

Listed below are a couple of things to know about the relationship between Native Americans and Blacks. Feel free to share these with your little cousin after yanking off the handfeather headband she made in college and ruining all of her fun that is racially insensitive.

How We Hooked Up: The earliest recorded Native and African American contact occurred in when the first enslaved Africans were taken to Hispanola; some Africans escaped to Santo Domingo. The first Black Americans emerged from these groups. A Native American Tribes Held Slaves: alas, the relationship between Blacks and Natives prior to emancipation was often rocky, as a tribes sided with the Confederacy and owned slave plantations. While the dynamics between slave holders and Africans was frequently different than those that existed on European conduct plantations, this nonetheless complicated the Black/Native relationship in a manner that challenges the narrative of us have embraced regarding that connection, which brings us to.

"3. You Do Not Have"up Indian On Your Family": As Harvard University historian Henry Louis Gates, Jr. Wrote in 2009, "Only 5 percent of all Black Americans have at least 12.5 percent Native American ancestry, the equivalent of at least one great-grandparent. Those.igh cheek bones\.lack hair your relatives brag about at each family reunion and vacation meal because you were two years old? Where did they come out? To paraphrase a well-known French saying, "Seek the White man." Some 58 percent of African Americans possess at least 12.5 percent European bloodstream. In other words, our variances in complexion and hair feel are more inclined to be credited to our White ancestry than the "Cherokee" heritage so a lot of us have been claiming for so many years.

Unless you have documented evidence, please stop telling folks that Grandma Mary Louise Jenkins was "Full-blood Indian" just because she awakened long, glistening plaits her whole life. Oh, and also don't run out telling folks you're 12 percentage White today and acting like that makes you mixed, either. Okay, Maybe You Do Have any Blood: Some Seminole Natives of Florida did form communities with escaped Africans, making what came to be known as Black Seminoles. Countless Africans traveled with the Seminole nation when they were forced to relocate to Native American territory, while some remained with people who stayed in Florida.

The 1835 Census revealed that some 10% of the Cherokee people had African blood. Before the Civil War, the Africans alive amongst Cherokee people were either enslaved by them or they were free, but lacking citizenship. In 1866, the Cherokee nation signed a treaty with the US government recognizing those people of African American tradition as full citizens. If you are curious to learn if and how you might have American blood ties, try supply or a genealogy pro that specializes in Black/Native relationships. The definitive book Black Indians by William Loren Katz is by far the most comprehensive book on the historical relationship between Native Americans and Blacks. It's not a scholarly work, but it's a wonderful resource for individuals looking to learn more about our connection.

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