Native Americans, Eugenics, and the Myth of Nam Hollow
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Declared Defective Native Americans, Eugenics, and the Myth of Nam Hollow Robert Jarvenpa university of nebraska press lincoln and london 2018 Contents List of Illustrations viii List of Tables x Series Editors’ Introduction xi Acknowledgments xiii Introduction: The Menace in the Hollow 1 1. Native Americans and Eugenics 9 2. Border Wars and the Origins of the Van Guilders 38 3. A “New” Homeland and the Cradle of Guilder Hollow 53 4. From Pioneers to Outcastes 74 5. The Eugenicists Arrive 95 6. Deconstructing the Nam and the Hidden Native Americans 115 7. Demonizing the Marginalized Poor 135 Conclusion: The Myth Unravels 151 Notes 165 Bibliography 205 Index 223 Illustrations Figures 1. “The Cradle of Guilder Hollow” 54 2. Hilly terrain near Guilder Hollow, ca. 1911– 12 80 3. Guilder Hollow woman, ca. 1911– 12 87 4. Young male Van Guilder farm laborer 89 5. Eugenics Record Office, Field Workers Conference 97 6. Wooden splint apple- gathering basket 121 7. Guilder Hollow man near his henhouse, ca. 1911– 12 125 8. Guilder Hollow family, ca. 1911– 12 131 9. Guilder Hollow mother and children, ca. 1911– 12 141 10. Guilder Hollow man with whipsaw, ca. 1911– 12 143 Maps 1. Environs of the Van Guilders 42 2 and 3. Guilder Hollow neighborhood 78 Charts 1. Kinship ties among the founding generations of Van Guilders 48 2. Joseph Van Guilder Jr.’s immediate descendants 49 3. Daniel Van Guilder Sr.’s immediate descendants 49 viii 4. Immediate descendants of an unidentified male descendant of Joseph Van Guilder Sr. 50 5. Stephen Van Guilder Sr.’s immediate descendants 50 6. Solomon Van Guilder’s immediate descendants 51 7. Martha Van Guilder Winchell’s immediate descendants 51 8. Portion of Arthur Estabrook and Charles Davenport’s genealogy 99 Illustrations ix Tables 1. Types of first-cousin marriage among the Van Guilders 128 2. Livelihood strategies in Guilder Hollow, ca. 1840– 1910 138 x Series Editors’ Introduction This volume expands the scope and method of this series, Critical Studies in the History of Anthropology, dealing with World War II legacies of race, class, and ethnicity by engaging with Native American materials especially through the work of Franz Boas and Americanist anthropology’s critique of scientific racism and eugenics. Estabrook and Davenport’s “flawed” eugenic ideology and methodol- ogy appeared in 1912, a year after The Mind of Primitive Man, Boas’s seminal demonstration of plasticity through generational change in head form in immigrants. The unquestioned biases of the eugenicist arguments were powerful at the time and persist today. Jarvenpa provides a counter to the stability of racial types by examining so- called “mixed” races in historic and ethnohistoric detail and showing how the distortions of eugenic science masked the persistence of indigenous identities, a critical issue for indigenous communities today. The Nam peoples of upper New York State provide a case study later taken incorrectly at face value— the revisionist scholarship is highly significant. Although Boas argued that family line data were crucial to defining racial types, his data were largely quantitative. Jarvenpa, in con- trast, creates a narrative based on a particular historical and cultural context in the larger history of America. The perceived dangers of miscegenation underwrote categorizing successive generations in this community as mentally defective and rationalized sterilization as a progressive solution. This narrative showcases how the dire consequences of eugenicists’ racial purity arguments confused the distinction between culture and biology and functioned to preserve existing white power structures. xi Much contemporary Native American literature on cultural hybridity fails to consider the base of racist arguments in biology. Given recent developments in epigenetics, reexamination is urgently needed, and this volume stands as an exemplary text impelling that process. Regna Darnell Stephen O. Murray xii Series Editors’ Introduction Acknowledgments My initial interest in Native Americans and eugenics was kindled over forty years ago while developing anthropology courses at the University at Albany, suny, on historical and contemporary Native American– European relations. Among the students in my first class was Stephen Comer, a Mohican and member of the Stockbridge-Munsee Community Band of Mohican Indians of Wisconsin. At that time, Steve had recently relocated to his ancestors’ original homeland in the Hudson River valley of upstate New York. As my courses evolved in ensuing years he and other Native American students generously shared their knowledge and personal experiences and put a human face on issues sometimes treated abstractly in books and journal articles. I owe a special debt to Steve and to Mary McDonald of the Mohawk Iroquois community at Akwesasne, to Rita Chrisjohn Benson, Oneida Iroquois, to Al Terry of Brothertown ancestry, and to Heidi Nicholls of Algonquin ancestry. I am equally grateful to the non-native students, too numerous to iden- tify here, who fully embraced Native American– European relations as a field of study. I also owe a large debt to the Chipewyan, Cree, and Métis people of northern Saskatchewan. The Kesyehot’ine Chipewyan of Patuanak and the English River First Nation have sustained me with their friendship and wise counsel for nearly five decades. Early experiences in Métis Cree communities left me with vexing questions about the lives and histories of mixed-race peoples elsewhere in North America. Ultimately, these questions led to the research for the present book. Those pivotal early investigations were generously supported by grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities, the National Museums of Canada, and the State University of New York. xiii I am especially grateful to Hetty Jo Brumbach for many years of stimulating collaborative research in ethnoarchaeology. She is my most valuable critic and was the first to review early drafts of this book. Innu- merable discussions with Hetty Jo refined my thinking about mixed-race communities and eugenics. Moreover, as an archaeologist with expertise in the Northeast and ancestral Mohicans, she has special knowledge regarding the pre- contact history of people discussed in this book. My other colleagues and students in anthropology at the Univer- sity at Albany have contributed to my intellectual development and, in many respects, to the way I have approached the story of Declared Defective. I am particularly thankful to Robert Carmack, who has been a valuable research collaborator, a source of wisdom, and good friend. James Collins, Walter Little, and the late Walter Zenner also have my gratitude for their friendship, intellectual support, and a lively exchange of ideas. Linda Lamouret- Goodman generously provided timely tech- nical assistance. I also wish to thank Richard Alba, formerly of the Department of Sociology at the University at Albany. His invitation to contribute a chapter for his volume on Ethnicity and Race in the U.S.A. spurred my interest in mixed-race Native Americans. I also thank the anthropologists at the New York State Museum in Albany for welcoming me as a research associate. Betty Duggan, former curator of ethnology at that institution, offered useful suggestions during the early stages of this project. I owe special thanks to Dr. Matthew Bokovoy, historian and senior acquisitions editor at University of Nebraska Press, for his unflagging encouragement, stimulating intellectual exchange, and keen insight on the issues I grappled with in writing Declared Defective. Professors John David Smith and Brenda Macdougall offered many insightful comments on sample chapters of my book for which I am grateful. I also deeply appreciate the thoughtful critiques provided by two anonymous reviewers of the entire book manuscript. I am thankful to Professor Paul Nadasdy for reading my work, and to the series editors, Regna Darnell and Stephen O. Murray, for their introductory essay. Heather Stauffer, editorial assistant at the press, has my gratitude for her fine handling of the production process, as does Jonathan Lawrence for his scrupulous xiv Acknowledgments copyediting. I also wish to thank Ann Baker, Elizabeth Zaleski, Tish Fobben, and Rosemary Vestal Sekora. The staff at the M. E. Grenander Department of Special Collections and Archives at the University at Albany kindly helped me access the materials in the Arthur H. Estabrook Papers. Director Brian Keough and archivist Jodi Boyle deserve special thanks for their assistance. Finding the “Key to the Nam Family” among Estabrook’s unpublished documents was a turning point in developing the arguments in this book. Census records and early newspaper accounts archived in the New York State Library in Albany were invaluable, and I am grateful to the library personnel for their considerable help. I also wish to thank the staff in Manuscripts and Special Collections of the New York State Archives for their kind assistance. I owe special thanks to the generous personnel at the Washington County Historical Society in Fort Edward, New York, and the Hartford Museum in Hartford, New York. Clare Clark and the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Archives also have my gratitude. I am most thankful for a Three Voices Grant from the William L. Reese Emeritus Center, University at Albany, suny, for help with production of the present book. Also, I appreciate the staff at Corner Gateway for their technical expertise. The work for this project would not have been possible without the exceptional care of many talented physicians and nurses who kept me going through a challenging time. I cannot thank them enough. Aside from their professional expertise, I must recognize Dr. David Shaffer and Dr. Gregory Strizich for their humane and wide-ranging interests and their willingness to share them. Like any product of historical and cultural research, Declared Defective is subject to revision as new information surfaces. Genealogical inves- tigations by descendants of people discussed in this book will surely augment the picture presented here while opening up new avenues of inquiry.