An examination of the complex relationship between Native Americans and African Americans and a structured argument as to why the two demographics should join forces on social activist causes.

1. Black and Red:
Discovering the
Kinship of the Past,
Establishing a Greater
Future
A Study By Nicole N. Harvin

3. Before the
Europeans

4. Cultural Similarities
Before European
colonization in Africa
and North America, the
traditional cultures of
the two groups
contained striking
similarities despite
being an ocean away.

5. Cultural Similarities
• Both cultures had very strong oral traditions
• Native American and traditional African populations tend
to have collectivist mindsets as opposed to individualistic
• A strong emphasis on being one with nature is seen in the
religious ideologies of both groups
• Both groups were primarily matrilineal as opposed to
patrilineal
• Strong belief in shamanism
• Heavy cultural emphasis placed on burial and burial
rights

6. Mutual Bondage

7. “Most men today
cannot conceive of a
freedom that does
not involve
somebody's slavery.”
– W.E.B. Du Bois

8. Enslavement of Native
Americans in Europe
• According to the book Africans and Native Americans:
The Language of Race and the Evolution of Red -Black
People, there have been many reports of Native
Americans being kidnapped by various European groups
prior to the 1500’s, specifically from Newfoundland and
Greenland.
• Enslavement of indigenous North American populations
intensified significantly with the arrival of Christopher
Columbus in “The New World.”

9. “When your highnesses so
command, they can all be carried
off to Castile or held captive in the
island itself, since with fifty men
they would be all kept in subjection
and forced to do whatever may be
wished.” – Christopher Columbus
(to the King and Queen of Spain
upon presenting them with
abducted Native Americans )

10. “In any case, at least 3,000
Americans are known to have
been shipped to Europe
between 1493 and 1501...” -
Africans and Native
Americans: The Language of
Race and the Evolution of Red
Black People

11. Enslavement in the “New
World”
• According to Africans and Native Americans: The
Language of Race and the Evolution of Red Black People,
Native Americans and Africans encountered each other as
slaves in Europe
• The two groups really became integrated, however, when
chattel slavery was introduced in the Americas.
• A chattel slave is who is owned for life and whose
children and children's children are automatically
enslaved. (This differs significantly from debt slavery or
contract slavery.)

12. Atlantic Slave
Trade

13. Harmonious
Relations

14. • In the Americas, Europeans feared interactions between
Africans and indigenous peoples
• In a report made in 1503, Nicolas de Ovando, the
Governor of Hispaniola, mentioned that indiginous
peoples would escape their European captors and return
to help free enslaved Africans.
• The first major slave revolt (which occured in Hispaniola
in 1522) was organized by a coalition of Africans and
indiginous peoples.

15. • In what is currently known as the United States, there were strict laws
against the marriage of whites and blacks as well as legislation against
whites marrying Native Americans*, but there were no laws against
African slaves marrying Native Americans
• According to the book That the Blood Stay Pure, “Because
membership in American Indian societies was based on kinship
systems and cultural criteria, exogamy was a cultural tradition.”
• In fact, by 1830, over half the American Indian population living east
of the Mississippi River had Black and Caucasian blood.
*This quickly changed after the marriage of John Rolfe and Pocahontas, making it “fashionable” among Whites to
have Native blood.

16. The Effects of
Eugenics

17. “a science that tries to
improve the human
race by controlling
which people become
parents” – Merriam-
Webster Dictionary
Eugenics is
defined as:

18. • Thomas Jefferson was obsessed with the idea of eugenics
and race purity and perpetuated this idea into American
culture, especially in his home state of Virginia
• Jefferson spoke heavily of the “noble savage” that,
according to That the Blood Stay Pure, gave Native
Americans the status of a “degraded white man”.
• These ideological ideas did little to deter relations
between Native Americans and African slaves...until
legislation came into play

19. “The first difference [between whites and blacks] which strikes us is that
of color. . . . The difference is fixed in nature, and is as real as if its seat
and cause were better known to us. And is this difference of no
importance? Is it not the foundation of a greater or less share of beauty in
the two races? Are not the fine mixtures of red and white, the expressions
of every passion by greater or less suffusions of color in the one,
preferable to that eternal monotony, which reigns in the countenances, that
immoveable veil of black which covers all the emotions of the other race?
Add to these, flowing hair, a more elegant symmetry of form, their own
judgment in favor of the whites, declared by their preference of them, as
uniformly as is the preference of the orangutan for the black women over
those of his own species. The circumstance of superior beauty, is thought
worthy attention in the propagation of our horses, dogs, and other
domestic animals; why not in that of man?” –
Thomas Jefferson, Notes on the State of Virginia

20. • During the 1700’s and 1800’, the “one drop rule”, or the
idea that one drop of “Negro” blood made a person black,
became a prevalent component of American racial
ideology.
• While there were still no anti-miscegenation laws in place
for African Americans marrying Native Americans, there
were devastating consequences.
• European settlers, hell-bent on retrieving Native lands,
began efforts to classify Native Americans as free
Negroes or simply Negro depending on their degree of
African ‘blood”.

21. • According to That the Blood Stay Pure, “In 1866, the
governor’s admonitions became codified with the Virginia
General Assembly’s first official definition of Indian: ‘every
person having one-fourth or more Negro blood shall be
deemed a colored person having one-fourth or more of Indian
blood shall be deemed an Indian.’”
• These laws had devastating effects on mixed Native American
and African slave communities that had been living in
harmony for years.
• In an attempt to re-claim their identity as “Indian”, Native
Americans began trying to cut ties with the African American
community, even it meant cutting off members of their own
families.
• One tribe that put up a particularly aggressive fight to keep
their identity as “Indian” was the Pamunkey tribe.

22. • The Pamunkey tribe had many members who were either
mixed with African American or fully African American.
• White Americans attempted to seize their lands by
claiming that they were so intermixed with African slaves
that they could no longer be considered “Indian.”
• The Pamunkey tribe was able to keep their reservation,
but they still faced severe disapproval from Whites who
considered them to be “colored”.
• Their guns were even confiscated in 1857 by White men
who claimed they weren’t allowed to own firearms
because they were “colored”

23. • Members of the Pamunkey tribe stopped
attending their usual church due to high
number of black members, and Pamunkey
tribal laws prohibited members from
marrying African Americans
• This American racial system was already
entrenched into the minds of other tribes like
the Powhatan people, and now the
Pamunkey tribe openly expressed their
disdain for the Black men and women who
were once their friends and family
• This disdain was only made worse by the
infamous Racial Integrity Act passed in
1924. The law required that every person’s
race be recorded at birth and that one could
only fall into two categories: white and
colored.
• This disdain towards African Americans is
still held by many tribes in the United States
to this day

24. Modern Issues

25. • In the years since anti-
miscegenation laws and
the RIA, Native
American and African
American Populations
have faced many of the
same socioeconomic
and political issues.
• One prevalent issue in
both communities is
that of substance abuse.

26. • While it has been statistically
proven that Whites are more
likely than African Americans
to use most illegal drugs, these
substances have still made a
dramatic impact on African
American culture.
• The American crack epidemic,
taking place in the years
between 1984 and the early
1990s, wreaked havoc on
African American populations,
most prevalently in New York
and California.
• Between 1984 and 1994, the
homicide rate for black men
doubled.
• There was also an increase in
fetal death rates, babies born
below a typical birth rate, and
black children in the foster
care system.

28. • While crack cocaine has waged
a vicious war on the Black
community, alcoholism has been
a highly influential epidemic for
Native Americans.
• 12% of the deaths among
American Indians and Alaska
Natives are alcohol-related
• The rate of fetal alcohol
spectrum disorder in Native
American populations is more
than seven times the national
average.

29. • Whether it be the in South
Side of Chicago or the Pine
Ridge reservation in South
Dakota, Native Americans
and African Americans both
face crippling poverty,
limited resources, and a lack
of properly funded education.
• In order to deal with these
issues, African Americans
and Native Americans have
unfortunately turned to gang
culture as a means of
survival.
A typical Pine Ridge home

30. Police Brutality

31. • A prevalent issue that has
become dominant in
mainstream American
culture recently is police
brutality.
• Recently, the
#BlackLivesMatter
movement has sought to
bring issues of police
brutality on African
American peoples to the
forefront of pop culture and
politics.
• Unfortunately, the plight of
Native Americans and their
own struggles with the
police have been all but
ignored by mainstream
media outlets.
• According to the Center on
Juvenile and Criminal
Justice, police kill Native
Americans at a higher rate
than any other ethnic group.

32. So what’s the
point...?
Final Argument and Closing Thoughts

33. Before European colonization, there were already many key
cultural similarities between Native Americans and
Africans. Native Americans and Africans suffered together
as slaves in Europe as well as in the Americas. And before a
racially based class system was established by the European
settlers in America, Native Americans and African slaves
lived together in harmony.

34. Anti-miscegenation laws did not directly prohibit African
slaves and Native Americans from marrying. What it did do,
however, was give Native Americans distrusting attitudes
towards Blacks who had previously been their neighbors,
friends, and (in many cases) family. By making “Blackness”
something that could tarnish one’s “Indian” identity, a racist
government placed barriers between cultures that should
have banded together.

35. Slavery has ended, reservations have been established, but
the two groups are still undoubtedly linked through a series
of shared social and political issues. Poverty, substance
abuse, and a lack of properly funded education are keeping
many African Americans and Native Americans in a cycle
of poverty. The political and governmental systems in our
nation seem determined to keep Natives and Blacks down
as well as gentrification, tribal land theft, and police
brutality wreak havoc on the groups.

36. What can be
done?

37. “Injustice anywhere is a
threat to justice
everywhere.”
-Martin Luther King Jr.
“If we do not hang together,
we shall surely hang
separately.”
-Benjamin Franklin

38. At such a pivotal moment in our nations history, it is finally time
for a community to be restored. Natives and African Americans
have a long and complicated history together, but our generation
can write a new chapter. When we march, we must march
together. When petitions are created for new laws that affect our
communities, we must sign them together. When the blood of one
of our own is unjustly shed, we must hold each other’s hands and
lift one another up in the spirit of our ancestors who staged slave
rebellions together. Due to our cultural similarities and shared
socioeconomic and political struggles, I am convinced that
Native Americans and African Americans should join forces on
social activist causes.