SCIENCE 



NEW YORK, FEBRUARY 13, 1891. 



AFRICAN AND AMERICAN: THE CONTACT OF 

 NEGRO AND INDIAN.' 



The history of the negro on the continent of America has 

 been studied from various points of view, but in every in- 

 stance with regard alone to his contact with the white race. 

 It must be, therefore, a new, as well as an interesting, in- 

 quiry, when we endeavor to ascertain what has been the 

 effect of the contact of the foreign African with the native 

 American stocks. Such an investigation, to be of great 

 scientific value, in the highest sense, must extend its lines 

 of research into questions of physical anthropology, philol- 

 ogy, mythology, sociology, and lay before us the facts which 

 alone can be of use. So little attention has been paid to our 

 subject, in all its branches, that it is to be feared that very 

 much of great importance can never be ascertained ; but it is 

 the object of this essay to indicate what we already Isnow, 

 and to point out some questions concerning which, with the 

 exercise of proper care, valuable data may even yet be ob- 

 tained. 



It is believed that the first African negro was introduced 

 to the West Indies between the years 1501 and 1503 ; and 

 since that time, according to Professor N. S. Shaler,^ there 

 have been brought across the Atlantic not more than "three 

 million souls, of whom the greater part were doubtless taken 

 to the West Indies and Brazil." Professor Shaler goes on to 

 say, " It seems tolerably certain that into the region north 

 of the Gulf of Mexico not more than half a million were im- 

 ported. We are even more at a loss to ascertain the present 

 number of negroes in these continents: in fact, this point is 

 probably indeterminable, for the reason that the African blood 

 has commingled with that of the European settlers and the 

 aborigines in an incalculable manner. Counting as negroes, 

 however, all who share in the proportion of more than one- 

 half the African blood, there are probably not less than 

 thirty million people who may be regarded as of this race 

 between Canada and Patagonia." Such being the case, the 

 importance of the question included in the programme of 

 investigation of the Congres des Americanistes — "Penetra- 

 tion des races africaines en Amerique, et specialement dans 

 I'Amerique du Sud " — becomes apparent, and no insignifi- 

 cant part of it is concerned with the relations of the African 

 and the native American. 



It was said that we start with 1503 or thereabouts. Of 

 course, some imaginative minds have discovered negroes in 

 America at a period long antedating this; but such is theory, 

 not fact. What the curious sculptured faces in Central 

 American ruins signify, we cannot at present determine. 

 Enthusiastic missionaries have spoken of negroes in Labra- 

 doi',^ and Peter Martyr (third decade) tells of negroes taken 

 prisoners in the battle between the Spaniards and Quaragua 

 in 1513. He states,^ " About two days' journey distant from 



' Paper read before the Canadian Institute, Toronto, Jan. 24, 1891, by A. F. 

 Chamberlain, M.A., fellow in anthropology in Clark University, Worcester, 

 Mass. 



= " The African Element in America " (The Arena, vol. ii. p. 666). 



3 Charlevoix, Hist, et Descript. g6n€rale de la Nouvelle France, 1744, 

 pp. 17, 18. 



^ Irving, Spanish Voyages of Discovery (Loveirs Library, No. 301), p. 120. 



Quaragua is a region inhabited only by black Moors sailed 

 thither out of Ethiopia, to rob, and that by shipwreck, or 

 some other chance, they were driven to these mountains." 

 Washington Irving thinks that Martyr was retailing the 

 " mere rumor of the day," and, as other historians do not 

 refer to the subject, considers that the belief " must have 

 arisen from some misrepresentation, and is not entitled to 

 credit." Fontaine says,' " Nunez, iu coasting along the 

 shores of the Gulf of Darien, discovered a colony of woolly- 

 headed black people, who had settled among the copper- 

 colored inhabitants of the mainland." This colony, too, 

 must be relegated to the land of fiction and romance. Nor 

 is it the only instance of the kind. Dr. A. R. Wallace 

 states that the Juris of the Rio Negro, who are " pure, 

 straight-haired Indians," are down in some maps as "Juries, 

 curly-haired negroes." And' not a little misconception has 

 been caused by such broad statements as that of Col. Galindo:^ 

 " The Carib is identical in outward appearance with the 

 African negro." 



Having thus cleared the way a little, let us take up the 

 consideration of ovir subject ethnographically. We may 

 begin with Canada. Although the Maroon settlement in 

 Nova Scotia, near Halifax, existed for a number of years 

 (before the removal to Sierra Leone), and remnants of it are 

 still to be found there, there appear to be no records extant 

 attesting contact with the Indian aborigines. Mr. J. C. 

 Hamilton, M.A., LL.B., of Toronto, who has devoted much 

 time to the study of the " African in Canada," is the writer's 

 authority for the statement that on one of the Iroquois res- 

 ervations in Ontario considerable intermixture with the 

 negro had taken place.* This opinion is confirmed by 

 Odjidjatekha, an intelligent Mohawk of Brantford, who 

 states that the Tuscarora reserve near that city is the one in 

 question. It has often been asserted that the celebrated 

 Joseph Brant was a slave-holder; but this has been denied 

 by his friends, who assert that he merely gave shelter to 

 refugee negroes, who were rather in the relation of depend- 

 ents than of slaves. One frequently comes across pas- 

 sages like the following:^ "Some Mohawk Indians and a 

 negro of Brant's;" and some such state of affairs would be 

 necessary to account for the present admixture of negro 

 blood. Mr. Hamilton also informed the writer that Mr. 

 George H. Anderson of Toronto, a United States pensioner, 

 and a native of Maryland, claims that his mother's mother 

 was a full-blooded Indian. There is also a case of negro- 

 Indian intermixture reported from British Columbia. 



In New England, especially in Massachusetts, considerable 

 intermingling of African and Indian appears to have oc- 

 curred. The earliest mention of negro slaves in the Bay 

 State is in 1633, and a very curious entry it is. Wood ' tells 



1 How the World was Peopled, p. 163. 



2 A Narrative of Travels on the Amazon, etc. (new ed., London, 1889), p. 

 355. 



3 Journal of the Royal Geographical Society, vol. lii. 1834, p. 291. 



■* See " The African in Canada " (Proceedings of the American Association 

 for the Advancement of Science, vol. ssxvLii.. 1889, pp. 364-,370J : "The Maroons 

 of Jamaica and Nova Scotia "" (Proceedings of the Canadian Institute, 3d se- 

 ries, vol. vii. 1890, pp. 260-269); also Transactions of the Canadian Institute, 

 vol. 1. (1890-91), p. 107. 



= Zeisberger's Diary (Ed. Bliss, 1885), p. 316, under date of June, 1793. 



« New England Prospect (16:54), p. 77, cited in WrLLiAMs's History of the 

 Negro Race in America, 1883, vol. i. p. 173. 



