1890-91.] ELEVENTH MEETING. 21 



Mr. D. R. Keys, M.A., read, on behalf of Mr. A. F. Chamberlain, 

 M.A., Fellow in Clark University, Worcester, Mass., a paper entitled, 

 *' African and American ; the contact of the negro and the Indian." 

 He said : — The history of the negro on the continent of America has 

 been studied from various points of view, but in every case with regard 

 to his contact with the white race. It must therefore be a new, as well 

 as an interesting inquiry, when we endeavour to find out what has been 

 the effect of the contact of the foreign African with the native American 

 stocks. Such an investigation must extend its lines of research into 

 questions of physiology, psychology, philology, sociology, and mythology. 



The writer took up the history of the African negro in America in 

 connection with the various Indian tribes with whom he has come into 

 contact. He referred to the baseless theories of pre-Columbian negro 

 races in America, citing several of these in illustration. He then took 

 up the question ethnographically, beginning with Canada. The chief 

 contact between African and American in Canada appears to have taken 

 place on one of the Iroquois reservations near Brantford. A iew instances 

 have been noticed elsewhere in the various provinces, but they do not 

 appear to have been very numerous. In New England, especially in 

 Massachusetts, considerable miscegenation appears to have taken place, 

 and in some instances it would appear that the Indians were bettered 

 by the admixture of negro blood which they received. The law which 

 held that children of Indian women were born free appears to have 

 favoured the taking of Indian wives by negroes. 



On Long Island the Montauk and Shinnacook Indians have a large 

 infusion of African blood, dating from the times of slavery in the Aorth- 

 ern States. The discovery made by Dr. Brinton that certain words 

 (numerals) stated by the Missionary Pyrlaeus to be Nanticoke Indian 

 were really African (probably obtained from some runaway slave or 

 half-breed) was referred to. In Virginia some little contact of the two 

 races has occuri^ed, and some of the free negroes on the eastern shore of 

 the Chesapeake peninsula show evident traces of Indian blood. The 

 State of Florida was for a long time the home of the Seminoles, who, 

 like the Cherokees, held negroes in slavery. One of their chiefs was 

 said, in 1835, to have had no fewer than 100 negroes. Here consider- 

 able miscegenation has taken place, although the authorities on the 

 subject seem to differ considerably on questions of fact. In the Indian 

 Territory, to which Cherokees, Seminoles, and other Indian tribes of the 

 Atlantic region have been removed, further contact has occurred, and 

 the study of the relations of the Indian and negro in the Indian Terri- 

 tory, when viewed from a sociological standpoint, are of great interest to 



