Written out of History: Contemporary Native American Narratives of Enslavement Author(S): Max Carocci Source: Anthropology Today, Vol

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Written out of History: Contemporary Native American Narratives of Enslavement Author(s): Max Carocci Source: Anthropology Today, Vol. 25, No. 3 (Jun., 2009), pp. 18-22 Published by: Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/20528227 Accessed: 11-09-2018 19:31 UTC

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This content downloaded from 132.174.254.118 on Tue, 11 Sep 2018 19:31:12 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms Written out of history Contemporary Native American narratives of enslavement

Max Carocci Max Carocci has a PhD in social anthropology from Goldsmiths College, University of London. For the last 30 years he has conducted fieldwork with Native Americans in various parts of the United States. He currently works at the British Museum s Centre for Anthropology and lectures on Native American arts at Birkbeck College, University of London, and anthropology to adult learners at City Lit, London. His email is: mcarocci@thebritishmuseum. ^^ t'*5 ^ " ? ^m ac.uk.

Fig. 1. Morning Star Figueroa, Mashantucket Pequot, talking about her experience in Bermuda (Mashantucket Pequot ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^B i^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^B f.i. ?m < reservation, Connecticut, Julv 2007). ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^h^^^^^^^^^^^^^hi^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^BN^^^V " v^ mis i

In 2007 the United Kingdom commemorated the 200th The pre-African commerce in human beings in and anniversary of the abolition of the slave trade, with a from North America was gradually superseded by the variety of institutional and community initiatives aimed importation of Africans, but full slavery and other forms at raising awareness about the facts of slavery among a of un-free labour were imposed on many North American range of audiences. Numerous exhibitions and activities indigenous peoples throughout the 19th century both in were organized around the theme of slavery across Britain, the northeast (Herndon and Sekatau 1997, 2005) and in yet there was an absolute silence about the thousands of the Spanish domains of California, New Mexico and Texas Native Americans enslaved or reduced to bondage before (Barr 2005, Brooks 2002), a fact that challenges hitherto and after the arrival of Africans on the North American received views about North American slavery. For over continent. This was despite the fact that the British con 300 years after the arrival of the first Europeans, Native ducted a profitable business sending Native American Americans continued to be sold, bartered, exchanged and slaves to their Caribbean territories from as early as the forced to work for all colonial powers in a variety of ways 16th century until the second decade of the 18th century and contexts. As a consequence, slavery and various forms (Chaplin 2005). of servitude affected Native Americans on a significantly It has been estimated that before 1715, 51,000 Native larger scale than approximate numbers at hand may sug

Barr, Juliana 2005. From Americans were sent by the British from North and South gest (Magnaghi 1998). captives to slaves: Carolina to the newly established colonies of the Caribbean I had the chance to discuss these issues with dozens Commodifying Indian (Gallay 2002). To these numbers, we should add all the of Native Americans whose forefathers suffered through women in the borderlands. Native slaves shipped from the northern Atlantic states slavery, debt bondage and other forms of servitude during Journal of American History 91(1): 19-46. such as Connecticut and Rhode Island, as well as those a month of travelling between New England, Virginia, Beacham, Donna 2007. sent by the French, Dutch and Spanish from their territo North Carolina and Louisiana in July 2007. My inten Author interview with ries to various parts of their colonial domains. Although tion was to gather information about Native American Donna Beacham, Richmond,VA, July. these numbers are comparatively less than the millions slavery as a background to a documentary film on this Blu, Karen 1980. The Lumbee of slaves deported from Africa, we will not have totals topic, part of a larger project which included a confer problem: The making of an of Native American slaves until we systematically put ence and book exploring the historical intricacies of a very American Indian people. together the scattered documentation concerning slavery little-known phenomenon. I chose localities from which Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press. and practices related to involuntary forms of servitude Amerindians were deported to islands such as Martinique, Boissevain, Ethel 1981. applied to them. Data concerning Native American slavery Saint Domingue, Antigua, Barbados and Bermuda (among Whatever happened of in all its multiple forms is contained in shipping records, many others). I was mostly concerned with the communi the New England Indians ties of the northeastern United States, with particular focus shipped to Bermuda to be legal documents, and the correspondence of government sold as slaves? Man in the officials and slavers such as the notorious Thomas Nairne on the Mashantucket Pequot tribe because they retain an Northeast 21: 103-114. (Moore 1988). established oral tradition regarding their past experience

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This content downloaded from 132.174.254.118 on Tue, 11 Sep 2018 19:31:12 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms Bureaucratie genocide In most of the eastern regions of North America, the his tory of interaction between Africans and Native Americans is probably as long as the history of colonization (Forbes 1993). Although numbers of African inhabitants in the early part of the colonial period were minimal, various groups of Amerindians had contact with Africans in the context of slavery and servitude as well as through war and trade, both groups experiencing a range of colonial roles as some became rebels, spies, traders, scouts, exiles and militia (see e.g. Sayers et al. 2007, Usner 1995). The people I interviewed were either directly descended from, or connected to the community of, people born from early unions between Native Americans and Africans. Among them was Deanna Beacham, a descendant of an indigenous American group known as Weapemeoc, first mentioned in an English map of 1585. She works as pro gramme specialist for the Virginia Council on Indians, the advisory council to the Government of Virginia for issues that are of concern to the Indian tribes of that state. Her group is not legally recognized. This means that it cannot access the funds and services available to state- and federally-recognized entities called 'tribes' for reasons of bureaucratic efficiency. From her I learnt that many groups in Virginia are in the same predicament, owing to a long history of discrimination and racial reclassification that :J'' ?

Brooks, James F. 2002. (Figueroa 2007, Landbridgeman 2007, Weeden 2007). decided that entire populations should be shipped to their Captives and cousins: Cumulatively, these tales reveal how throughout Caribbean possessions. Deanna Beacham reports the case Slavery, kinship and American history bureaucrats, historians and politicians of the Nanziattico, a small coastal population whose last community in the strove to iron out the ethnic and racial creases of a national southwest borderlands. 40 surviving members were shipped to Antigua in 1705, Chapel Hill: University of history that many still want to see simplistically in black never to be heard of again (Morgan 1984). North Carolina Press. and white terms. The following excerpts from accounts A compelling example of Indians being sold into slavery in Carocci, Max and Pratt, about Native American slavery were chosen from among Stephanie (eds) a dozen interviews and informal discussions I had with Virginia [...] is what happened to the Nanziattico people in (forthcoming). Breaking 1704, that's actually the one instance that we have that a tribe and making bonds: people from five eastern Native American tribes because was essentially eliminated as a result of a conflict here [...] A Meanings and contexts of they clearly epitomize the alternative ways in which con small party of [...] Nanziattico Indians committed a killing of Native American slavery, temporary Native Americans reflect upon their history, one [English] family [...] as a result of a long standing dispute captivity and adoption. London: Palgrave [under and how they use this past to negotiate their identities in [...] The Nanziattico were impugned to give up the killers and consideration]. the present. they did that and the killers were convicted in English court

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This content downloaded from 132.174.254.118 on Tue, 11 Sep 2018 19:31:12 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms Fig. 4. Mashantucket Pequot and they were hanged, but the General Assembly also decided He was instrumental in getting a law passed in 1924 called the tribal Museum. Reconstruction that the entire nation could be retaliated against because of Racial Integrity Act [...] that divided people into two racial of Pequot Indian boatmen ca. 1670. what these men had done so they actually passed a ruling categories: white and coloured. So you could either be one 3 that enslaved the entire population of the Nanziattico with or the other [...] if you had a single drop of non-white blood the exception of children who were under 12, and all of those you were coloured [...] So, since he physically destroyed or people were sold into slavery in Antigua in the West Indies changed records of so many Virginia Indians he essentially Chaplin, [...] That'sJoyce one nation that we canE. show through2005. the history committed an act of bureaucratic genocide on the Virginia Enslavement by law of the General Assemblyof that Indians was entirely eradicated. Indians,in and affected them powerfully in ways that are still early America: (Beacham 2007) Captivity causing detriment to tribes today, in my opinion. I can't and without a narrative. In won't speak for the other populations of Virginia Indians, but Over this period Virginian records are silent about Mancke, E. and Shammas, I can't see a more obvious event than what happened in the C. (eds) African-Native The American creation interactions, but by 1705, ofwith the 20th century in terms of Virginia Indians being written out of British theAtlantic institution of the Black Code world,Law which restricted the pp. 45-70. Boston: JHU Press. history. (Beacham 2007) Clifford, rights ofJames non-European peoples, 1988.indigenous Virginians Identity Native American narratives from other eastern states in Mashpee. appear increasingly In: under the Clifford,labels Mulatto, Mestizo J. The andpredicament Mustee, alongside ambiguous dual descriptions of such similarly suggest that labelling Indians as 'people of culture: as 'Negro-or-Indian' Twentieth-century (Forbes 1993). Intermixing between colour' resulted in the apparent disappearance of Native ethnography, literature, and art, Africans pp. and Native Americans211-146. was common, and court Americans from many parts of the country (Landbridgeman Cambridge, cases reveal that individuals MA: were considered Harvard black until 2007, Weeden 2007; but see also Forbes 1983, 1993). University they could prove they Press were Indian. In the early 20th century, Trudy Landbridgeman (Schaghticoke), Director of Daffron, Brian 2007. Freedmen Public Programs for the Mashantucket Pequot tribe, said descendants when the eugenics movement struggle took hold at the University to maintain of Virginia, their a campaign was launched Cherokee to introduce racial in this regard: identity. purity thatIndian would put an end to confusingCountry racial classifica Census takers, who were generally white males, made their Today, tions.30 In fact,March, Deanna Beacham explained http:// to me that the decision about who was Indian and who was not Indian, and www.indiancountrytoday. com/archive/28149654. eugenicists aimed to prove that there were no Indians left if you didn't look Indian that you didn't get on the census as html; accessed in the state: 20 February being Indian and so just with a swipe of a pen you were elimi 2009. nated [...] particularly in the northeast [where] Native people Doctor Walter Plecker, who was appointed in 1918 as the Fickes, Michael L. 2000 [...] don't necessarily look [Indian] doesn't mean that they are director of the Bureau of Vital Statistics, made it one of his 'They could not endure not Indian and they are Pequot or Mohegan or Schaghticoke or primary motifs to show that anyone who tried to say that they that yoke': The captivity of Narragansett [...] they are still Indian, and ought to be treated were Indian was merely a mongrel or a coloured-part person Pequot women and children as members of a tribal nation, as a sovereign nation because after the war of 1637. New who was trying to become white by virtue of declaring them sovereign nation determines who the membership is, not how England Quarterly 73( 1 ): selves to be Indian. This is what the man believed, and to back 58-81. they look. (Landbridgeman 2007) this up he took actions that were essentially illegal, but [...] Figueroa, Morning Star 2007. he changed records of Virginian Indians that were born and Author interview with, The relevance of these narratives can be seen in the recorded as Indian people to say that they were coloured. He Morning Star Figueroa, recent initiatives aimed at restoring a sense of common Mashantucket Pequot did this on birth certificates, marriage certificates, on death cer reservation, CT, July. tificates, on any legal records that he could get his hands on. past among some north Atlantic tribes such as the Pequot,

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This content downloaded from 132.174.254.118 on Tue, 11 Sep 2018 19:31:12 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms Fig. 5. T-shirt designed by the Narragansett, Wampanoag and the Schaghticoke (from relatives. Every year since then Bermuda has hosted a Bermudian artist Wayne Saint an area covering parts of Massachusetts, Connecticut and Reconnection Festival on the island of St. David, to cele John for the anniversary Reconnection Festival Rhode Island). They were the first to start a process of brate the shared history of slavery that unites New England celebrated by New England reconnection with the descendants of those indigenous with these remote islands (Kulla 2007, Peters 2002). Native Americans and Bermudians. groups that were shipped to the Caribbean islands as Mashantucket Pequot Morning Star Figueroa, who slaves, hoping to reinstate long lost relations and uncover has participated in the Reconnection Festival several what for many, including many Native Americans, has for times, confirms that St. David is the island where Native so long been forgotten history. Americans were first deported from New England after the ravages of the Pequot wars in the 17th century. Reconnection When I first went to Bermuda I barely knew anything about Because of the extreme complexity of early colonial sce them being descendants of our people, but once I got out there narios, and the independent development of each indi [...] I've seen that the [Reconnection] committee were doing vidual state's legislation, today's Native American group as much as they could to find out [...] information about their background and how they are linked to the Pequots [...] I was Forbes, Jack D. 1983. Mustees, histories are highly varied. In contrast to Virginian Indians, able to look at a portfolio that consisted of different articles that half-breeds and zambos some descendants of enslaved peoples from Connecticut, were confiscated throughout time that would prove that there in Anglo North America: Massachusetts and Rhode Island tribes have managed to Aspects of Black-Indian was some [...] link [between Bermudans and Mashantucket relations. American Indian maintain, or in other cases rebuild, a group identity pre Pequots]. (Figueroa 2007) Quarterly 7(1): 57-83. cisely on the basis of stories of enslavement and racism ? 1993. Africans and Native that were so detrimental for other communities. Indeed, According to Tall Oak Weeden: Americans: The language of race and the evolution of as the case of the Mashantucket Pequot of Connecticut The largest concentration of New England Indians did end Red-Black peoples. Urbana demonstrates, such stories have today become the narra up in St David's Island, and because the islands are separate and Chicago: University of tive thread that binds their ethnic identity. islands and St. David was one of the last islands to be con Illinois Press. It is well known to anthropologists that oral history and nected by a bridge with the other islands of the Bermuda chain, Gallay, Alan 2002. The Indian they retained more the traditions and the blood lines because slave trade: The rise of official versions of the past often compete over claims they had no one else to breed with but themselves and they the English empire in the to reliability, but problems generated by this contention intermarried with their own cousins, so everyone in St. David's American south, 1670-1717. are felt particularly acutely by eastern tribes, which often New Haven and London: island is related to [...] or double, triple related in some kind of Yale University Press. struggle to gain tribal recognition in state and federal way and I think that has lot to do with why they look so much Herndon, Ruth Wallis and courts (see, e.g., Blu 1980, Clifford 1988, Minderhout and like us, even today after all history has taken place, and we look Sekatau, Ella Wilcox 1997. Frantz 2008). so much like them, all we do every time we meet is saying 'You The right to name: The Tall Oak Weeden, a Pequot/Wampanoag activist and look like my cousin here or [...] you look like my aunt there' Narragansett people and Rhode Island officials in historian, reports that after the ravages of the Pequot war and vice versa, so we'll never stop doing that, that's all part of the reconnection process. (Weeden 2007) the revolutionary era. In: in 1637, dozens of captives were shipped to Bermuda and Calloway, CG. (ed.) After forced into slavery (Weeden 2007; see also Boissevain Bermudans who regularly participate in these festivals, King Philip 's war: Presence and persistence in Indian 1981, Mason 1937). He has no doubts about the veracity of reports Tall Oak Weeden, say that their ancestors were New England, pp. 114-143. the stories that were passed down in his ^^mmmmmmm known in the islands as 'Mohawk' Hanover, NH and London: family, but having experienced the sus- ^^^^^^^^| or 'Indian' - generic terms that asso University Press of New ciated them with North American England. picion with which dominant American ^^^^^^Hfl ? 2005. Pauper apprenticeship institutions regarded oral sources ^^^^H^^H indigenous peoples originally brought in Narragansett country: A during the intense political struggle for ^^^^^^^^M there as slaves. different name for slavery For Morning Star Figueroa and in early New England. In civil rights of the 1960s and 1970s, he ^^^^^^H Benes, Peter (ed.) Slavery has sought for years to unearth sup- ^^^^^^^^B other participants in the Reconnection and antislavery in New porting documentary evidence to prove ^^^H|^^^| Festival, the stories telling of this England: Proceedings of | transatlantic connection have been the Dublin Seminar for that there are indeed Native North ^^^^^^^^B Americans in the Caribbean. With a ^^^^^fl^H | confirmed to both New England New England Folklife < Indians and Bermudans of St. David's 2003, pp. 56-70. Boston, serene sense of accomplishment, he ^^^^^^^^H Massachussetts: Boston told me that through genealogical ^^^^^^^^| | Island by what they see as physical University Scholarly research he traced back his line of ^^^^^^^^^ w similarities between them. Publications. Kulla, Anthony 2007. descent to a house servant called Toby Weeden, probably a When I firstly went out there [to Bermuda] I've definitely seen Friendship display at Wampanoag, owned in the 18th century by a John Weeden lots of similarities, most of them had beautiful mocha skin and reconnection festival in of Jamestown, the English name for the Native island of beautiful [...] green or brown or hazel eyes [...] beautiful [...] Bermuda. Pequot Times Conaticat in the middle of Narragansett Bay, in Rhode thick [...] long hair [...] most of them looked like our people. July: 1. Island. It was from those shores that his forefathers were (Figueroa 2007) Landbridgeman, Trudy 2007. Author interview with shipped to the Caribbean and other Atlantic territories in Tall Oak Weeden's account of his realization of this con Trudy Landrigemant, the final attempt to eradicate the Native presence from the nection stems from the memory of his first encounter with Mashantucket Pequot a Bermudan woman on visit to his reservation: reservation, CT, July. area. Trudy Landbridgeman explained to me that: Magnaghi, Russell M. 1998. After the Pequot war and massacre in 1637 [...] the Treaty of The first person that I ever met from our relatives taken to Indian slavery, labor, Hartford [...] said very clearly that the Pequots could not longer Bermuda [...] was here on the visit to that very same island evangelization and captivity be called Pequots again and that some of them would have to were my ancestors came from, Conecticat Island in the middle in the Americas: An live under the control of the Mohegans and that some of them of Narragansett Bay, she was visiting a first cousin of mine annotated bibliography. Lanham, MD and London: would have to live under the control of the Narragansetts; some there [...] and when I found out she was there, I decided imme The Scarecrow Press Inc. of them were actually sold into slavery, taken up to Boston and diately I needed to go there and talk with her [...] and soon as I Mallard, Kevin Noble 2007. then put on slave ships who took them down to the Caribbean, laid eyes on her [...] I knew I was looking at one of our people Racial exclusion in Indian and others were taken on as indentured servants, some volun [...] you know [...] that visual documentation was there [...] I country. Indian Country tarily, some involuntarily. (Landbridgeman 2007) didn't need anything in writing. (Weeden 2007) Today, 17 May. Mason, van Wyck 1937. Tall Oak Weeden has spent more than eight years gath On both sides of the Atlantic, stories of this Native Bermuda's Pequots. Harvard Alumni Bulletin 39: ering resources that would allow him to reconnect with American 'Middle Passage' (as the African slave trade 616-620. the descendants of those Indian slaves deported in the late is often called) were only recorded in oral history, and Minderhout, David and Frantz, 17th century. In 2002 he finally managed to bring a group the striking physical similarities that the Pequots of New Andrea 2008. Invisible Indians: Native Americans of Native representatives from the New England tribes England and the St. David's Bermudans found in each in Pennsylvania. Human to Bermuda to establish an international network that other are, in their view, concrete evidence that these stories Organization 67( 1 ): 61 -67. would set up direct communication between these distant may be considered true.

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This content downloaded from 132.174.254.118 on Tue, 11 Sep 2018 19:31:12 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms Fig. 6. Tall Oak Weeden, Conclusions Pequot/Wampanoag, has The major point of this article is to demonstrate that the been researching the history of Native American slavery enslavement of Native Americans has been largely written for years. He instigated the out of official versions of history. This conclusion comes Reconnection Festival that as no surprise to the many Americans whose mixed commemorates the arrival of Pequot slaves in the islands Amerindian/African ancestry has been dismissed, their of Bermuda (Narragansett ability to construct a recognizable ethnic identity hindered. reservation, Rhode Island, As many of them know from first-hand experience, the July 2007). Fig. 7. Deanna Beacham, ideological and bureaucratic apparatuses that force people Weapameoc, at the into neat racial and ethnic categories constantly fail to headquarters of the Virginia account for a history whose complexity is embodied in the Council on Indians, multiplicity of features and physical attributes that they Richmond, Virginia, July 2007. and their communities recognize as part of their own past Fig. 8. Trudy and present. Landbridgeman, Shaghticoke, Narratives of Native American slavery offer a prized Director of Public Programs sense of historical rootedness to many individuals and for the Mashantucket Pequot tribe, regularly groups who fall into the crevices generated by the bureau holds seminars and cratization of racialized discourse established as a means workshops on New England to control ethnically tied resources and a tribally-held Native American history (Mashantucket Pequot land base. The recognizable African ancestry displayed reservation, Connecticut, July by some Native Americans who also claim indigenous 2007). ancestry reveals that America's racial history cannot be Fig. 9. Census records written solely in black and white, and that assertions of of Virginian tribes were 3 altered by eugenicists like tribal belonging are often challenged by racist govern Walter Plecker, who was ment evaluations that hold significant implications for the largely responsible for the future of America's original inhabitants, their identities 'disappearance 'of Indians in the state of Virginia. In and demographic numbers. the photo: Virginian Native At a point in history when growing claims to Native American dancers perform American ancestry on the part of long misrepresented at the Jamestown Festival, groups threaten to overwhelm the limited resources allo Gravesend, UK (June 2007). cated to all indigenous peoples by the federal government, it is no surprise that tribal citizenship continues to be stringently restricted by the strict requirements of Native American blood percentages. Many Native Americans agree that these requirements stem from the racist poli cies first implemented by President Thomas Jefferson, and Morgan, further bureaucratizedGwenda at the beginning of1984. the 20th cen Sold into slavery in retribution against tury the by the US Bureau Nanziattico of Indian Affairs. Although tribal Indians. nations retainVirginia the right to establish their own requirements Cavalcade for enrolment in 33(4):their census records, many168-173. argue that this Nairne, T. 1988. Nairne's policy is the heritage of an outmoded model of racial seg Muskogean journals: The 1708 regation andexpedition classification based on a set of supposedly to the Mississippi scientific facts that sit uncomfortably River, alongside customary ed. Alexander Moore. practices of adoption shared by many pre-colonial indig Jackson, MS: University Press of enous groupsMississippi. both before and after contact (Carocci and Peters, Pratt Paula forthcoming). 2002. We missed As tribalyou. constitutions Capeand bills have recently Cod been Times 14 July: 1. Reynolds, revised to Jerrydeny tribal membership 2007. to Americans ofNMAI exhibition African descent will who were once explore slaves among tribes hidden suchhistories as Cherokee, Semin?le and otherof southern race. groups Indian (DaffronCountry 2007, Mallard 2007, WilkinsToday 2005), narratives 31 October: B1,B3. Sayers, of Danielsocial incorporation, forcedO., enslavement Burke, and ethnic P. Brendan mixing inand the context of Henry,slavery can help retrace the Aaroncom M. 2007. plex histories The of cross-cultural political interactions at the core of economy of exile in the Great muchDismal of America's past. ThisSwamp. may also challenge the International underlying essentialisms thatJournal underpin judgments about of Historical race, ethnicity andArchaeology belonging in a broader sense in North ll(l):60-97. America. Usner Jr., Daniel H. 1997. Indian-Black relations Narratives of enslavement passed down by members of in antebellum Louisiana. eastern groups such as the Virginia Indians and tribes from In Palmi?, Stephan other Atlantic states, as briefly sketched here, bring to the (ed.) Slave cultures and fore the complexities of America's long fascination with the cultures of slavery, pp. 145-161. Knoxville: racial reasoning, classifications and taxonomies - catego University of Tennessee rizations that have been highly detrimental to many groups' Press. rights to legitimization and, ultimately, self-determination. Weeden, Tall Oak 2007. Author interview with Tall Whilst narratives of enslavement provide a rationale for Oak Weeden, Charlestown, the construction of some tribal identities, they are at the RI, July. same time a painful reminder that North America's geno Wilkins, David 2003. Red, black, and bruised. Indian cidal assault on its indigenous peoples was perpetrated not Country Today 22 October: only through direct physical annihilation and displace A5. ment, but also through the simple stroke of a pen.

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