European colonization of the Americas Records of contacts between Africans and Native Americans date to April 1502, when the first enslaved African arrived in
Hispaniola. Some Africans escaped inland from the colony of
Santo Domingo; those who survived and joined with the Native tribes became the first group of Black Indians. These first groups of Black Indians established a number of
Maroon settlements in the
Caribbean. In the lands which later became part of the
United States, the first recorded example of an enslaved African escaping from European colonists and being absorbed by Native Americans dates to 1526. In June of that year,
Lucas Vázquez de Ayllón established a Spanish colony near the mouth of the
Pee Dee River in present-day
South Carolina. The Spanish settlement was named
San Miguel de Guadalupe; its inhabitants included 100 enslaved Africans. In 1526 the first enslaved Africans fled the colony and took refuge in
Shakori Indigenous communities. In 1534
Pueblo peoples of the Southwest had contact with the Moroccan slave
Esteban de Dorantes before any contact with the remainder of survivors of his Spanish expedition. As part of the Spanish
Pánfilo de Narváez expedition, Esteban traveled from Florida in 1528 to what is now
New Mexico in 1539, with a few other survivors. He is thought to have been killed by
Zuni. More than a century later, when the Pueblos united to rid their homelands of the Spanish colonists during the 1690
Pueblo Revolt, one of the organizers of the revolt,
Domingo Naranjo ( – ) was a
Santa Clara Pueblo man of African ancestry. In 1622 Algonquian Native Americans
attacked the colony of Jamestown in
Virginia. They massacred all the Europeans but brought some of the few enslaved Africans as captives back to their own communities, gradually assimilating them. Interracial relationships continued to take place between Africans (and later African Americans) and members of Native American tribes in the coastal states. Although the colonists tried to enslave Native Americans in the early years, they abandoned the practise in the early 18th century. Several colonial advertisements for runaway slaves made direct reference to the connections which Africans had in Native American communities. "Reward notices in colonial newspapers now told of African slaves who 'ran off with his Indian wife' or 'had kin among the Indians' or is 'part-Indian and speaks their language good'." Several of the
Thirteen Colonies passed laws prohibiting the transportation of enslaved people into the frontier of the Cherokee Nation's territory to restrict interactions between the two groups. Some tribes encouraged intermarriage with Africans, with the idea that stronger children would result from the unions. Colonists in South Carolina felt so concerned about the possible threat posed by the mixed African and Native American population that they passed a law in 1725 prohibiting taking enslaved people to the frontier regions, and imposing a fine of 200 pounds if violated. In 1751, South Carolina passed a law against holding Africans in proximity to Native Americans, as the planters considered that detrimental to the security of the colony. Under Governor
James Glen (in office 1743–1756), South Carolina promoted an official policy that aimed to create in Native Americans an "aversion" to African Americans in an attempt to thwart possible alliances between them. In 1753, during the chaos of
Pontiac's War, a resident of
Detroit observed that the Native tribes revolting were killing any
whites they came across but were "saving and caressing all the Negroes they take." There were varieties of attitude: some Native Americans resented the presence of Africans. In one account, the "Catawaba tribe in 1752 showed great anger and bitter resentment when an African American came among them as a trader." Especially in the southern colonies, initially developed for resource exploitation rather than settlement, colonists purchased or captured Native Americans to be used as forced labor in cultivating tobacco, and, by the 18th century, rice and indigo. To acquire trade goods, Native Americans began selling war captives to whites rather than integrating them into their own societies. Traded goods, such as axes, bronze kettles, Caribbean rum, European jewelry, needles, and scissors, varied among the tribes, but the most prized were rifles. The escape of Native American slaves was frequent, because they had a better understanding of the land, which African slaves did not. Consequently, the Natives who were captured and sold into slavery were often sent to the West Indies, or far away from their traditional homeland. Virginia would later declare "Indians, Mulattos, and Negros to be real estate", and in 1682 New York forbade African or Native American slaves from leaving their master's home or plantation without permission. It was more profitable to have Native American slaves because African slaves had to be shipped and purchased, while native slaves could be captured and immediately taken to plantations; whites in the Northern colonies sometimes preferred Native American slaves, especially Native women and children, to Africans because Native American women were agriculturalist and children could be trained more easily. By the late 1700s records of slaves mixed with African and Native American heritage were recorded. In the eastern colonies it became common practice to enslave Native American women and African men with a parallel growth of enslavement for both Africans and Native Americans. This practice of combining African slave men and Native American women was especially common in South Carolina. (Free individuals were not supposed to be reported for the Census; a local militia captain supplied it on his own initiative, with the expectation "that ye Other Captains in Oysterbay will acquaint Your Honour [governor of New York] of those Resideing in ye Other parts of ye Township.") During the transitional period of Africans' becoming the primary race enslaved, Native Americans had been sometimes enslaved at the same time. Africans and Native Americans worked together, lived together in communal quarters, along with white indentured servants, produced collective recipes for food, and shared herbal remedies, myths and legends. Some intermarried and had mixed-race children. Among the Cherokee, interracial marriages or unions increased as the number of slaves held by the tribe increased. At that time, the government did not have a separate census designation for Native Americans. Those who remained among the European-American communities were frequently listed as
mulatto, a term applied to Native American-white, Native American-African, and African-white mixed-race people, as well as
tri-racial people. But during the registration of tribal members for the Dawes Rolls, which preceded land allotment by individual heads of household of the tribes, generally Cherokee Freedmen were classified separately on a Freedmen roll. Registrars often worked quickly, judging by appearance, without asking if the Freedmen had Cherokee ancestry, which would have qualified them as "Cherokee by blood" and listing on those rolls. Black Indians were documented in the following regiments:
The 1st Kansas Colored Infantry, the Kansas Colored at Honey Springs, the 79th US Colored Infantry, and the 83rd US Colored Infantry, along with other colored regiments that included men listed as Negro. The first battle in Indian Territory took place July 1 and 2 in 1863, and Union forces included the 1st Kansas Colored Infantry.
Native American slave ownership Slavery had existed among
Native Americans, as a way to make use of war captives, before it was introduced by the
Europeans. It was not the same as the European style of
chattel slavery, in which slaves were counted as the personal property of a master. In Cherokee oral tradition, they enslaved war captives and it was a temporary status pending adoption into a family and clan, or release. As the
United States Constitution and the laws of several states permitted
slavery after the American Revolution (while northern states prohibited it), Native Americans were legally allowed to own slaves, including those brought from Africa by Europeans. In the 1790s,
Benjamin Hawkins was the federal agent assigned to the
southeastern tribes. Promoting assimilation to European-American mores, he advised the tribes to take up slaveholding so that they could undertake farming and plantations as did other Americans. Records from the slavery period show several cases of brutal Native American treatment of black slaves. However, most Native American masters rejected the worst features of Southern practices.
Native American Freedmen , principal chief; unidentified man,
John McGilvry, and
Silas Jefferson or
Hotulko micco (Chief of the Whirlwind). The latter two were interpreters and negotiators. After the Civil War, in 1866 the United States government required new treaties with the Five Civilized Tribes, who each had major factions allied with the Confederacy. They were required to emancipate their slaves and grant them citizenship and membership in the respective tribes, as the United States freed slaves and granted them citizenship by amendments to the US Constitution. These people were known as "Freedmen", for instance, Muscogee or Cherokee Freedmen. Many of the Freedmen played active political roles in their tribal nations over the ensuing decades, including roles as interpreters and negotiators with the federal government. African Muscogee men, such as Harry Island and Silas Jefferson, helped secure land for their people when the government decided to make individual allotments to tribal members under the
Dawes Act. Some
Maroon communities allied with the Seminole in Florida and intermarried. The Black Seminole included those with and without Native American ancestry. When the
Cherokee Nation drafted its constitution in 1975, enrollment was limited to descendants of people listed on the Dawes "Cherokee By Blood" rolls. On the Dawes Rolls, US government agents had classified people as Cherokee by blood, intermarried whites, and Cherokee Freedmen, regardless of whether the latter had Cherokee ancestry qualifying them as Cherokee by blood. The Shawnee and Delaware gained their own
federal recognition as the
Delaware Tribe of Indians and the
Shawnee Tribe. A political struggle over this issue has ensued since the 1970s. Cherokee Freedmen have taken cases to the Cherokee Supreme Court. The Cherokee later reinstated the rights of Delaware to be considered members of the Cherokee, but opposed their bid for independent federal recognition. The tribe has determined to limit membership only to those who can demonstrate Native American descent based on listing on the Dawes Rolls. Similarly, the
Seminole Nation of Oklahoma moved to exclude Seminole Freedmen from membership. In 1990 it received $56 million from the US government as reparations for lands taken in Florida. Because the judgment trust was based on tribal membership as of 1823, it excluded Seminole Freedmen, as well as Black Seminoles who held land next to Seminole communities. In 2000 the Seminole chief moved to formally exclude Black Seminoles unless they could prove descent from a Native American ancestor on the Dawes Rolls. 2,000 Black Seminoles were excluded from the nation. Descendants of Freedmen and Black Seminoles are working to secure equal citizenship and rights within tribes. Over 25,000 Freedmen descendants of the Five Civilized Tribes may be affected by the legal controversies. Before the Dawes Commission was established, After the Dawes Commission established tribal rolls, in some cases Freedmen of the Cherokee and the other
Five Civilized Tribes were treated more harshly. Degrees of continued acceptance into tribal structures were low during the ensuing decades. Some tribes restricted membership to those with a documented Native ancestor on the Dawes Commission listings, and many restricted officeholders to those of direct Native American ancestry. In the later 20th century, it was difficult for Black Native Americans to establish official ties with Native groups to which they genetically belonged. Many Freedmen descendants believe that their exclusion from tribal membership, and the resistance to their efforts to gain recognition, are racially motivated and based on the tribe's wanting to preserve the new gambling revenues for fewer people. ==Genealogy and genetics==