Re: Early Amerind assimilation (Was: Re: Romans in the New World?)
HaSpam (thedavid@clark.net)
6 Aug 1996 05:54:47 GMT
Mary Beth Williams (mbwillia@ix.netcom.com) wrote:
: Whether or not mixed-race children were accepting as *white*
: in *outliver* populations is currently not *knowable*,
Bunk. It's known in my father's mixed-race family, where some were
recorded as "white," some as "black, some as "Indian," and some as
"_______" (i.e. space left blank). The difference was often due to
a) who's doing the recording and b) who is being recorded: if who-
ever was keeping track liked and/or respected our family they were
given "higher" status. My evidence is anecdotal as I don't have my
late father's geneological records, but I think I remember he said
there was a case where a "black" mother and an "Indian" father had
a "white" baby -- whatever that proves about the criteria applied.
: as we don't have a significant understanding of white *outliver*
: society.
Perhaps you're not asking the right people the right way.
: Perhaps more information is available in African-American populations,
: as I recall a very good article on the influence of local Indian
: pottery style and technique among slave populations in South Carolina
: in McGuire and Paynter's _Archaeology of Inequality_. But I also
: recall that the author concluded that the integration of technique
: _did not_ automatically indicated interracial unions.
Not automatically, no. Of course not. But if you ask around in black
neighborhoods in the southeast US -- or look around the Lumber River
area in North Carolina, for example -- you'll learn that "horizontal
integration" did happen frequently, and is still going on. Sometimes
this is because "a pretty girl is a pretty girl," and sometimes (I'd
say 'usually') it depends on one's socioeconomic status -- pale gals
can be expensive to woo and keep.
David
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