Black Dutch is a term with several different meanings in United States dialect and slang. It generally refers to racial, ethnic or cultural roots. Its meaning varies and such differences are contingent upon time and place. Several varied groups of multiracial people have sometimes been referred to as or identified as Black Dutch, most often as a reference to their ancestors.
[Bible, Jean Patterson (1999). ''Melungeons Yesterday and Today''. Signal Mountain, Tennessee: Mountain Press][Elder, Pat Spurlock (1965). ''Melungeons: Examining an Appalachian Legend''. Blountville, Tennessee: Continuity Press]
, ''American Genealogy Magazine,'' Vol. 12, No. 1 (March 1997): 11-30[Cassiday, Frederic G. (1985) ''Dictionary of American Regional English, Vol 1, A-C,'' Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press]
The term Black Dutch appears to have become widely adopted in the Southern Highlands and as far west as Texas in the early 1800s by certain Southeastern families of
mixed race
Mixed race people are people of more than one race or ethnicity. A variety of terms have been used both historically and presently for mixed race people in a variety of contexts, including ''multiethnic'', ''polyethnic'', occasionally ''bi-ethn ...
ancestry, especially those of
Native American descent.
[Jimmy H. Crane, "The Elusive Black Dutch of the South"](_blank)
, ''Native Peoples Magazine'' When used in the South, it usually did not imply
African
African or Africans may refer to:
* Anything from or pertaining to the continent of Africa:
** People who are native to Africa, descendants of natives of Africa, or individuals who trace their ancestry to indigenous inhabitants of Africa
*** Ethn ...
admixture, although some families who used the term were of tri-racial descent.
In addition, some mixed race persons of European and African descent identified as Portuguese or Native American, as a way to explain their variations in physical appearance from Europeans and to be more easily accepted by European-American neighbors.
By the late 18th century, numerous free mixed race families were migrating west, along with English neighbors, to the frontiers of Virginia and North Carolina, where racial castes were less strict than in plantation country of the Tidewater.
Germans
The term "Dutch" for people of German descent also acquired a wider meaning. In those days "Dietsch" or "Duitsch" and "Deutsch" were the words for the Germanic languages spoken in what we now know as the Netherlands and Germany. Germans with swarthy or darker complexions were called "Black Dutch" (or ''Schwarze Deutsche'' or "black german"). According to James Pylant, who studied families claiming "Black Dutch" as part of their heritage:
"There are strong indications that the original "Black Dutch" were swarthy-complexioned Germans. Anglo-Americans loosely applied the term to any dark-complexioned American of European descent. The term was adopted y some people
Y, or y, is the twenty-fifth and penultimate letter of the Latin alphabet, used in the modern English alphabet, the alphabets of other western European languages and others worldwide. According to some authorities, it is the sixth (or seventh ...
as an attempt to disguise Indian
Indian or Indians may refer to:
Peoples South Asia
* Indian people, people of Indian nationality, or people who have an Indian ancestor
** Non-resident Indian, a citizen of India who has temporarily emigrated to another country
* South Asia ...
or infrequently, tri-racial
Melungeons ( ) are an ethnicity from the Southeastern United States who descend from Demographics of Europe, Europeans, Native Americans in the United States, Native American, and sub-Saharan Africans brought to America as indentured servants and ...
descent. By the mid-19th century, the term had become an American colloquialism
Colloquialism (), also called colloquial language, everyday language or general parlance, is the style (sociolinguistics), linguistic style used for casual (informal) communication. It is the most common functional style of speech, the idiom norm ...
; a derogative term for anything denoting one's small stature, dark coloring, working-class status, political sentiments or anyone of foreign extract. In contrast to the Anglo-surnamed Melungeon
Melungeons ( ) are an ethnicity from the Southeastern United States who descend from Europeans, Native American, and sub-Saharan Africans brought to America as indentured servants and later as slaves. Historically, the Melungeons were associat ...
s, nearly 60% of American families reporting Black Dutch tradition bear surnames that are either decidedly German or possibly Americanized from Germanic origin."
Even in the 1820s, ethnic German men who differed over politics used "Black Dutch" as a slur against opponents.
[James Pylant, " 'Black Dutch' As 19th Century Slur"]
''Genealogy Magazine'', 2007, accessed 17 January 2012
Melungeon
Late 20th-century research by Paul Heinegg found that 80 percent of people listed as
free people of color
In the context of the history of slavery in the Americas, free people of color (French: ''gens de couleur libres''; Spanish: ''gente de color libre'') were primarily people of mixed African, European, and Native American descent who were not ...
in censuses from 1790–1810 in North Carolina, could be traced back to African Americans identified as free in Virginia in colonial times. Based on his research, he found that most such free African-American families before the
American Revolution
The American Revolution was an ideological and political revolution that occurred in British America between 1765 and 1791. The Americans in the Thirteen Colonies formed independent states that defeated the British in the American Revolut ...
were descended from unions in the working class – between white women (whose status made their children free by the principle of ''
partus sequitur ventrem
''Partus sequitur ventrem'' (L. "That which is born follows the womb"; also ''partus'') was a legal doctrine passed in colonial Virginia in 1662 and other English crown colonies
A Crown colony or royal colony was a colony administered by The ...
'') and African men: free, indentured servants and slaves.
[Paul Heinegg, ''Free African Americans in Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Maryland and Delaware''](_blank)
1999-2005
Since the late 20th century,
DNA tests of people from core Melungeon families, as documented in the
Melungeon DNA Project
The Melungeon DNA Project is a genetic study started in 2005 by the private company Family Tree DNA of people with identified Melungeon ancestors (according to historic records), mostly residing in Hancock County, Tennessee and people with ancestor ...
coordinated by Jack Goins, have shown most individuals are of European and African descent, rather than having Native American ancestry. This is a confirmation of Heinegg's genealogical research, summarized in his ''Free African Americans in Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Maryland and Delaware'' (1995–2005), which is available for free online.
Native Americans passing for white
As early as the 18th century, ethnic Germans and Irish/scots-irish migrated from Pennsylvania into Virginia through the
Shenandoah Valley
The Shenandoah Valley () is a geographic valley and cultural region of western Virginia and the Eastern Panhandle of West Virginia. The valley is bounded to the east by the Blue Ridge Mountains, to the west by the eastern front of the Ridge- ...
and settled in the backcountry of the
Appalachian Mountains
The Appalachian Mountains, often called the Appalachians, (french: Appalaches), are a system of mountains in eastern to northeastern North America. The Appalachians first formed roughly 480 million years ago during the Ordovician Period. They ...
, areas considered the frontier compared to
Tidewater Virginia
Tidewater refers to the north Atlantic coastal plain region of the United States of America.
Definition
Culturally, the Tidewater region usually includes the low-lying plains of southeast Virginia, northeastern North Carolina, southern Maryl ...
and the Low Country of the coast. They likely continued to use their term of "Black Dutch" to refer to swarthy-skinned people or, more generally, political opponents. Historically,
mixed-race
Mixed race people are people of more than one race or ethnicity. A variety of terms have been used both historically and presently for mixed race people in a variety of contexts, including ''multiethnic'', ''polyethnic'', occasionally ''bi-ethn ...
European-Native American and sometimes
full blood Native American families of the South adopted the term "Black Dutch" for their own use, and to a lesser extent, "
Black Irish," first in
Virginia
Virginia, officially the Commonwealth of Virginia, is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Southeastern regions of the United States, between the Atlantic Coast and the Appalachian Mountains. The geography and climate of the Commonwealth ar ...
,
North Carolina
North Carolina () is a state in the Southeastern region of the United States. The state is the 28th largest and 9th-most populous of the United States. It is bordered by Virginia to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the east, Georgia and So ...
, and
Tennessee
Tennessee ( , ), officially the State of Tennessee, is a landlocked state in the Southeastern region of the United States. Tennessee is the 36th-largest by area and the 15th-most populous of the 50 states. It is bordered by Kentucky to th ...
. As the researcher Paul Heinegg noted, the frontier was also the area of settlement of mixed-race families of African and European ancestry, who also used the terms.
They may have attempted to "pass" and avoid being removed to
Indian Territory
The Indian Territory and the Indian Territories are terms that generally described an evolving land area set aside by the Federal government of the United States, United States Government for the relocation of Native Americans in the United St ...
or stigmatized by what became a majority Anglo-American society.
Some Native Americans, mainly from the
Five Civilized Tribes
The term Five Civilized Tribes was applied by European Americans in the colonial and early federal period in the history of the United States to the five major Native American nations in the Southeast—the Cherokee, Chickasaw, Choctaw, Creek ...
of the Southeast, claimed "Black Dutch" or "Black Irish" heritage in order to purchase land in areas which United States treaties and other laws had reserved for people of European descent. Once they owned the land, such families who had escaped forced removal would not admit to their Native American heritage, for fear of losing their property.
As an example, an exhibit at the state-run
Oakville Indian Mounds Park and Museum in
Lawrence County,
Alabama
(We dare defend our rights)
, anthem = "Alabama (state song), Alabama"
, image_map = Alabama in United States.svg
, seat = Montgomery, Alabama, Montgomery
, LargestCity = Huntsville, Alabama, Huntsville
, LargestCounty = Baldwin County, Al ...
gives the history of the term among
Cherokee
The Cherokee (; chr, ᎠᏂᏴᏫᏯᎢ, translit=Aniyvwiyaʔi or Anigiduwagi, or chr, ᏣᎳᎩ, links=no, translit=Tsalagi) are one of the indigenous peoples of the Southeastern Woodlands of the United States. Prior to the 18th century, t ...
in the local area after Indian Removal:
Before the Indian Removal Act
The Indian Removal Act was signed into law on May 28, 1830, by United States President Andrew Jackson. The law, as described by Congress, provided "for an exchange of lands with the Indians residing in any of the states or territories, and for ...
in 1830, many of Lawrence County's Cherokee people were already mixed with white settlers and stayed in the country of the Warrior Mountains. They denied their ancestry and basically lived much of their lives in fear of being sent West. Full bloods claimed to be Black Irish or Black Dutch, thus denying their rightful Native American blood. After being fully assimilated into the general population years later, these Irish Cherokee mixed-blood descendants, began reclaiming their Native American heritage in the land of the Warrior Mountains, Lawrence County, Alabama. During the 1900 U.S. Census only 78 people claimed their Native American heritage. In 1990, more than 2000 individuals claimed Native American descent. Today more than 4000 citizens are proud to claim their Native American heritage and are members of the .
Black Dutch in the Midwest and Deep South
Over time, the term "Black Dutch" migrated with certain families of mixed ancestry from North Carolina, Kentucky, and Tennessee to
Missouri
Missouri is a U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern region of the United States. Ranking List of U.S. states and territories by area, 21st in land area, it is bordered by eight states (tied for the most with Tennessee ...
and
Arkansas
Arkansas ( ) is a landlocked state in the South Central United States. It is bordered by Missouri to the north, Tennessee and Mississippi to the east, Louisiana to the south, and Texas and Oklahoma to the west. Its name is from the Osage ...
, as well as to
Mississippi
Mississippi () is a state in the Southeastern region of the United States, bordered to the north by Tennessee; to the east by Alabama; to the south by the Gulf of Mexico; to the southwest by Louisiana; and to the northwest by Arkansas. Miss ...
, Alabama, Texas, and Oklahoma, where its original meaning became lost. Many people born in the 20th century have claimed Black Dutch heritage, sometimes in addition to Native heritage, without having any idea who their "Black Dutch" ancestors were supposed to be.
Unlike families in Pennsylvania or Virginia, most of the mixed-race "Black Dutch" families of the
Deep South
The Deep South or the Lower South is a cultural and geographic subregion in the Southern United States. The term was first used to describe the states most dependent on plantations and slavery prior to the American Civil War. Following the war ...
have English , Scots or Irish surnames, and have no German ancestry in their families.
See also
*
Melungeon
Melungeons ( ) are an ethnicity from the Southeastern United States who descend from Europeans, Native American, and sub-Saharan Africans brought to America as indentured servants and later as slaves. Historically, the Melungeons were associat ...
*
Black Irish
*
Ramapo Mountain People
*
Jersey Dutch
The New York Dutch, also known simply as Dutchmen (Dutch: ''Duitsers''), were a cultural group native to New York and New Jersey found along the old borders of New Netherland. In New York they were known as the New York Dutch, and in New Jersey ...
References
External links
Myra Vanderpool Gormley, C.G., "In Search of the Black Dutch" ''Shaking the Family Tree'', 2 April 1998, Ancestry.com
''Migrations'', Smithsonian Institution
{{Appalachian people
Multiracial ethnic groups in the United States
African–Native American relations