Africans and Native Americans: Black Indians Passing
Far before passing became the act of crossing the socially constructed “color line” that separated European Americans from African Americans, Native Americans in the United States were passing as “colored” among black communities. Contact between red and black people was so extensive that Spanish law had prohibited marriage, as early as 1523, between Africans and Indians. The genetic blending of the two peoples weakened the control Europeans wanted over their slaves, and the instances in which Indian tribes housed black runaways are many. Furthermore, in some parts of Massachusetts the Indians that feared for their lives also took refuge in black settlements and identified as blacks. The feeling of Black Indians, nowadays, is that they must embrace all parts that make up their history, although risking to be considered inauthentic. Biracial recognition and the claiming of an identity that differs from the one drop-rule becomes a prerogative to a people who, otherwise, leave the entire ancestry of one of the parents out of equation.
Keywords: Racial Gender Crossing
Dr. Renee D'Elia-Zunino
Lecturer, Department of Modern and Foreign Languages and Liteartures, University of Tennessee