Teaching Students About Black Native Americans

Unit 1 : Black Native Americans

Big Idea: The Blacks in the United States came from diverse backgrounds. Essential Questions:  1. How do cultures, ethnicity and identity influence who we are? 2. Were there Black Native Americans? 3. How have historical events and human experiences impacted the Afro-American community?

Standards and Objectives

4w.1+	Write opinion pieces on topics or texts, supporting a point of view with reasons and information. a. Introduce a topic or text clearly, state an opinion, and create an organizational structure in which related ideas are grouped to support the writer’s purpose. b. Provide reasons that are supported by facts and details. c. Link opinion and reasons using words and phrases (e.g., for instance, in order to, in addition). d. Provide a concluding statement or section related to the opinion presented.
4w.5+	With guidance and support from an adult; develop and strengthen writing as needed, by planning, revising, editing rewriting or trying a new approach.
RH.6-8.4 RH.6-8.2	Determine the meaning of words and phrases as they are used in a text, including vocabulary specific to domains related to history/social studies. Determine the central ideas or information of a primary or secondary source; provide an accurate summary of the source distinct from prior knowledge or opinions.
RI2	Determine two or more main ideas of a text and explain how they are supported by key details; summary of the text.
RL2	Determine the theme of a story, historical document or poem from details in the text and how the speaker in a poem reflects upon a topic, summarize the text.
5RL7	Analyze how visual and multimedia elements contribute to the meaning, theme or beauty of a text.
5RI8	Explain how an author uses revision and evidence to support particular points in a text, identifying which reasons and evidence supports which point of view.
5L6	Acquire and use accurately grade appropriate general academic and domain-specific words and phrases including those that signal contrast, and other logical relationship.

Recommended Texts and Resources

Writing Prompt	The Black population is the result of Native Black Americans, Black Europeans and Africans. Given this variety of Black nationalities that formed the contemporary Black population, is the term Afro-American and accurate name of the Black people in the United States. Be sure to state your opinion, supporting your opinion with reasons. Finally, be sure to support your reasons with facts, and details.
Reading and Media Selections	Blacks in America Malians in Pre-Columbian America Blacks in ancient America The Mound Builders Origin of the name Indian Black Native Americans Black Native American Culture before the Revolutionary War Interactions between Black Native Americans and white Americans The Black Native American Triangular Trade
Vocabulary	Hunter-gather, Southern Death Cult, Minoans, infantry, Abulakari, Mande (Manding) people, Caribe,
Resources	Clyde Winters, African Empires in Ancient America,2013. Clyde Winters, We are not JUST Africans: Black Native Americans.2015.

   Black/African Indians in America

     Most Blacks in the United States of America are called Afro-Americans, because they are mainly of African descent but they live in America. Although, many Afro-Americans are descendants of slaves, only,  the Black population in the United States is derived from Black Europeans, and Black Native Americans, in addition to Africans.

   

Black Native Americans were already in the United States when Europeans found the American continent. These Blacks lived from the East Coast of the United States all the way down to Florida. They also lived in the Midwest, South and Southwest and on the Pacific shore from California to the  state of Florida. The Black Native Americans often belonged to the Cree, Creek, Ojibwa, Chipewyan , Seminole , Cherokee, Dogrib,Papago,Delaware, Huron and Iroquois nations. In Florida they  built many forts made of red brick and fought the U.S. army for years.

The first Blacks to come to the United States with Europeans were not slaves . These Blacks came from Europe. The Black Europeans were the descendants of the Moors who ruled much of Europe upto 1492 when Black Muslims were pushed out of Spain and Portugal back into Africa. The Black Europeans came as free land owners, while other Blacks were indentured slaves.

Review

1. Using evidence from the text explain why all Afro-Americans are not just descendants of slaves. Why might this be important for people to know
2. Make a foldable divided into three sections. In each section list the diverse origins of Afro-Americans.

                      Malians in PreColumbian America 

Around A.D. 1310, thousands of Mande or Mandekan speakers arrived in the Americas from ancient Mali. Mali was an ancient West African Empire.

 Ibn Fadlullah al- Umari, in his encyclopedia "Masalik al Absar", said the mariners from Mali during the reign of Abubakari made transatlantic voyages. Al-Umari, obtained his information from Mansa Musa, who was handed the kingship of Mali by King or Mansa Abubakari when he set out to colonize the Americas.

The Malian people introduced their military, agricultural and boat technology to the Americas. The Manding built dwellings depending on the topography .

Near rivers they lived on mounds. In semi-arid regions they lived in cliff houses, like those found in the American  Southwest. Today the Dogon who trace their descent to the Mande live in identical dwellings as those  found in Colorado ,where Manding inscriptions dating to the A.D. 1000 's have been found related to the Pueblo culture. 

   


Tellem Cliff Dwellings from West Africa        

American Cliff Dwelling

The expeditionary force of Mansa (or King) Abubakari, must have been immense, because the average boat on the Niger, in the 1500's A.D., could carry 80 men. This means that anywhere between 25,000 to 80,000 men may have sailed from Mali along with Mansa Abubakari. South Equatorial Current carried the Mali explorers to Brazil. From here they spread throughout South, Central and North America.

In Mexico the Malian wanders are depicted in the Mixtec Codex Dorenberg
(fourtenth century). These migrates are bearded, they have large noses and
lips, and are represented with black skins. In addition,to the Codex
Dorenberg they are also seen in the Codex Tro, with staff or spear in hand,
feathered headdresses, polished earrings, cloaks and loincloths made of the
finest woven cotton. They wore arm and wrist bands, and small white shells
on their ankles which rattled as they walked , usually in groups of two's or
three's.

In Mexico, due to previous cultural development the Mandekan found large heavily populated Indian communities. Therefore the Malian colonists did not establish any large communities in Mexico, but they were active traders and are remembered for their merchandise.

There are Mexican traditions of groups of foreigners moving northward throughout the early 14th century. These men probably formed the vanguard of a larger body of Malians which probably entered Mexico in 1325, and fought the Mexicans around this time for land to settle. The battle of these Africans and Amerindians, is seen in the legend of a battle between an eagle and a serpent and the choice of the site of the battle as the place to build
Mexico's Tenochititlan. The serpent is the totem of the Mandekan, it therefore probably represents the Malian forces, and the eagles the Amerindians. Among these foreign migratory groups it is reported in Amerindian traditions that they took the practice of agriculture and pottery making to the Chichimecs, and helped design and build the houses around Lake Texcoco in 1327.

The Malians left many inscriptions in the Southwestern part of the United States. The presence of Manding in Four Corners, is supported by the appearance of Dogon and Bambara ideograms, called petroglyphs, on rocks in the Anasazi area. Moreover, there are several tablets found in Four Corners called the Elephant Slabs which have been deciphered that were written in an aspect of Mandekan.

In conclusion, in 1310 thousands of Malians arrived in the Americas. Many of these Malians settled throughout South America and the American Southwest where they left numerous inscriptions written in the Mandekan-Bambara language that was spoken by the Malian court. We also find that the Malians are mentioned in many Mexican Codexes and Native American oral traditions.

Review  

1. True or False. Mansa Musa discovered America.

2.True or False. By 1325  Malians were entering Brazil.

3.List evidence from the text that strongly support Malians were in Pre-Columbian America.

The Mound Builders

    The mounds in the United States may have been built by Africans for defensive purposes while they tried to co-exist with local Amerindian populations that lived nearby.

     This hypothesis is supported by the fact that the Ohio-Indiana-Illinois-Missouri mound sites are located on hilltops overlooking valleys, and are clearly defensive works covering many acres with formidable walls of earth, sometimes reinforced by stone, all evidently chosen for their impregnability. In lowland areas where there were probably few inhabitants or unsettled land, the mounds are of various geometric enclosures: octagons, circles, squares, ellipses. These mounds were more than likely built without military intentions.

     The defensive style mounds found in the United States had lines of embankments which averaged between 5 to 30 feet high, with enclosures hundreds of acres wide. Leading out form many of these enclosures there often were parallel walls many miles long forming great avenues.  Wiener felt that these mounds resembled the African cities of Loanga, in the Congo, and the ancient city of Benin. W.E.B. DuBois noted:

         "The mounds of the "Mound Builders" were probably replicas of Negro forts in Africa. That this tendency to build forts and stockades proceeded from the Antilles , whence the Arawaks had come in the beginning of the sixteenth century is proved by the presence of  similar works in Cuba. These are found in the most abandoned and least-explored part of the island and there can be little doubt that they were locations of fugitive Negro and Indian stockades, precisely such as were in use in Africa".

     The only occupied mounds seen by Europeans were those built by the African slaves, the Arawak Indians and people in Florida. Hernando De Soto the only European to see occupied mounds tells us much about their construction and use.

     De Soto and his men discussed the mounds they found among the Florida Indians. Here as mentioned earlier lived some African /black people. De Soto noted that at Ucita, Florida: "The town was of seven or eight houses built of timber, and covered with palm-leaves....The chief’s house stood near the beach, upon a very high mound made by hand for defense; at the other end of the town was a temple...."  It is interesting to note that in Florida one of the major ethnic groups living there was the Yamassi or Jamassi people which were described as blacks.

     The mounds in the United States are usually found near rivers. In the Ohio Valley 10,000 mounds have been discovered. In the north the mound zone begins in western New York and extended along the southern shore of Lake Erie into what is now Michigan, Wisconsin and on to the states of Iowa and Nebraska. In the southern United States the mounds lined the Gulf of Mexico from Florida to eastern Texas, and extended up through the Carolinas and across to the state of Oklahoma.

    The mounds of ancient America follow the lines of the Mississippi and Ohio rivers, and outlying regions as well. They vary in size from colossal mounds in Illinois to mere blisters rising from the earth.

     Most, if not all of these mounds had long been abandoned by their former inhabitants when they were discovered. Many excavated mounds have yielded human bones, weapons, tools, inscriptions and jewelry.

     Statues of Africans have also been found in these mounds. As discussed earlier there were two types of African statues found in the ancient mounds excavated in the western Sudan. Africoid statues of type one , i.e., humanoids in a sitting position with their hands on the thigh and right knee pointing up while the other knee is resting on the ground are found in Tennessee and Indiana at the Angel site.  The most common type, style two statues , i.e., statues of humanoids in a sitting position with the hands placed across the chest have also been found at Etowah and Temple mound sites in Tennessee and Georgia.  It is also interesting that anthropomorphic statues found in Polk County, Georgia are analogous to statues found in Mauritania.

     One of the major mound sites inhabited in North America was that of the Adena culture in Ohio. The Adena culture existed from 200 B.C., to A.D. 400-500 .

     Black Africans are characterized as being broad faced, full lipped, illustrating prognathism , large boned with fleshy noses.   Samuel Morton in Crania Americana , written in 1839 noted that Adena people possessed "ponderous bony structure[s]...large jaws and broad face". This description of the Adena, fits exactly the description of the West African type.

     The Adena or Hopewell culture as we call it today was a dominant force in the United States during this period. They have left numerous copper bracelets, rings, stone tablets and effigy pipes made in the form of Africans. At the Great Serpent Mound, in Adams County Ohio a copper breastplate has also been found. Prof. F.W. Putnam, also mentioned the discovery of an Egyptian looking figure  in these mounds.

     Among the hundreds of pipes discovered in the mounds we see many African totems impressed on the pipes including serpents and birds. There is even one pipe from Ohio, found in a mound that is an unmistakable representation of a Toucan. The Toucan bird is found in Brazil. This supports the view that some mound builders had lived formerly in Brazil.

     Most of the Malian influence among the mound builders corresponds to artifacts recovered from the Southern Death Cult. The pipes recovered from many mounds in the United States and the name for Tobacco suggests that it was the Manding who introduced tobacco to the New World. (Sertima 1976)

    The Manding may have also constructed the Temple Mounds. These mounds were built between A.D. 700 and 1700. The Temple Mounds were built in the central Mississippi Valley, Arkansas, southern Missouri, southern Illinois and western Tennessee.

     Most of the inhabitants of the temple Mounds probably came from eastern Yucatan. They were probably remnants of the foreign people moving north through Mexico recorded in Amerindian traditions. This is proven by the discovery of many figurines and statues of Blacks in the Temple Mounds.

    The sculptural evidence found in the mounds all indicate an African origin as proven by Wiener (1922). A long pipe with a crouching figure on the bowl on exhibit in the New York Historical Society is of an African with compound bracelets, five on the wrist, six on the upper arm, four on the calf, such as only found in Mexico and west Africa. These bracelets are found in gorgets from the Etowah Mound, which show Malian influence.           Other sculpture heads and figurines of Africans have been found on the banks of Paint Creek ,near Chillocothe,Ohio; Tennessee; Mississippi; and on Green Flats in Virginia, which wear African headdresses ,skull caps and facial striations identical with those of the Manding. We also find the depiction of Africans in carvings from Spiro Oklahoma. At Spiro Mound African faces were carved on shells and the Manding cross sign placed on the palms of the hands on one artifact. This cross in the Manding script meant "righteousness, purity". Other inscribed works of art from the Moundville site in central Alabama also show Manding signs, especially the Manding cross.

     A figurine found in a cemetery at Nashville, Tennessee was of African women, while another African statue was found at Clarksville, Tennessee in 1897. These statues as well as heads on the gorgets from the Missouri mounds show analogous striations found on the faces of Manding clansmen.      

      Among the Southern Death Cult mound builders we find a third type statue , which has the leg and knee as the base, with the arms placed across the chest with the hands resting above the breast. Another type statue is seen in the effigy jar with "weeping-eye" motif, it has as its base the feet and buttocks, the knees are pointing up in the air, and the arms are placed across the chest with the hands placed above the opposite breast.

    The major reason for the varied art styles among the mounds that were built by the Malians, result from the fact that Mali was composed of many different ethnic groups that spoke different languages and practiced varied cultures. As a result of this ethnic pluralism we find a homogenous people who inhabited many mounds in the United States that practiced a multiplicity of cultural forms.

Origin of the Name Indian

Europeans traded with South India before they discovered America. The South Indians were Black. As a result, when they met the Black Native Americans in the West Indies they called them: Indians because they were Black like the South Indians.

Many people get upset about the name Indian for Native Americans. Native Americans were given this name because when the Europeans thought that they had reached India, they found Black people like those of South India. As a result, the term Indian goes back to the Dark Color of the first Native Americans, Europeans met. Indi, means Black.

Later Europeans reached the mainland. It was only then that Europeans or whites encountered the so-called "Red" or mongoloid Indians.

1.       Use information from the text to explain why, or why not, the term Indian, is an appropriate or inappropriate name for Native Americans?

Black Native Americans

There were many Black Native Americans when Europeans came to the United States. These Black people came to America from Africa and Asia.

The first Native Black Americans came to South America from Africa around 30,000 years ago. These people probably sailed across the Atlantic Ocean and settled in South America.

Up until 12,000 years ago the Ice Age prevented Blacks from crossing the Bering Straits into North America. Once the Ice melted Black pgymies entered America across the Straits. They were followed years later by the Mongoloid Indians.

Other Blacks came to America after 1000 BC from mainland Asia by Sea. These Blacks also founded settlements in places like Fiji, Micronesia and the Melanesia Islands, before they reached the U.S., Westcoast.

There were over 100 tribes in California when the Spanish arrived. The California Black Native Americans practice many life styles. Some were huntergatherers, while others fished and farmed.

 The Black Native Americans on the East Coast of the United States mainly came from Africa. Many Black Native Americans had arrived in America before the Malians led by King Abubakari came to the U.S., after 1300. These Black Native Americans were mainly farmers. They lived on mounds near lakes and streams throughout the United States. Other Black Native Americans built the cave monuments in Four Corners region of the United States.

These tribes include the , Nanticoke , the Yamassee, Tama & more. Many of these Black Native American tribes were killed off by Americans during American-Indian Wars. Other Black Native Americans were sold into slavery so Americans could take their land. Many states passed laws to require citizens of the state to prove their citizenship. A South Carolina Slave code, for example, said that to prove  you were free you had to show  documentation . Black Indians were not given papers so their land could be taken, while they were sold into slavery.

 As slaves came to the U.S., from Africa, many ran away to live with the Indians. In 1526, African slaves fled their Spanish masters and settled in South Carolina Indian Territory. African slaves married many Black and Mongoloid Native Americans (NA). In 1622, at Jamestown Virginia, the whites were killed, the African slaves settled among the NA. By 1700 many free born Blacks on the Chesapeake Peninsula  were of native American origin.

There were so many slaves among the Iroquois and other Northeastern American tribes that in 1726, 1764 and1765, the governor of Colonial New York exacted a promise from the Delaware, Huron and Iroquois.

In the IndianTerritory  slaves founded many maroon societies or lived on tribal lands . These runaway slaves held extensive land holdings in Florida and in Nova Scotia, near Halifax during the American slave period. In South Florida 50 miles of farm land , cattle and etc., owned by Maroons. The Black in Florida and Mississippi freely mixed with the Creek and Seminoles. Other Africans belonged to the Cherokee, Choctaw, and Creek nations. In Minnesota, by 1819 at the mouth of the St. Louis River, there were Africans  living in Ojibwa villages.

Questions

1.Place the events below in the proper sequence.

____Black cross Bering Straits into North America.

____Abubakari sells to America

____30,000 BC Africans settle South America

___Africans come to America as slaves.

2.Using evidence from the text compare and contrast the lifestyle and culture of the Black Indians on the West and East Coast of the U.S.

Black Native American Culture before the Revolutionary War

Study this painting of an Afro-Indian before the Revolutionary War. Using evidence from this painting tell us about  Black Native American culture before the Revolutionary War in the American Mid-West.

Interactions between Black Native Americans and white Americans

Below are two Documents. Study the Documents below.

Document 1

Document 2

1.  Study these paintings of Black Native Americans and white Americans. Using evidence from Documents 1 and 2 how would you characterize the relationship between Black Native Americans and white Americans.

The Black Native American Triangular Trade

 The Five Civilized Tribes were Blacks.Black Native Americans lived on the prime farming lands of  New England, the Southeast and the Midwest. The first slaves in the United States were Black Native Americans. Whites forced over 100,000 Native Americans  to cultivate tobacco, rice, and indigo. As a result,many Black Native Americans were exterminated or sold into slavery after they had wars with the whites or other Indian tribes. Like people in Africa, the Native Americans sold each other into slavery for guns and cheap goods. The whites concentrated on encouraging the Indians to fight each other so they could buy the losing tribal  members as slaves. They also kidnapped Native Americans and made them slaves. Because the Black Native Americans were farmers they concentrated on enslaving Black Native Americans.

The original triangular trade did not involve Africa. In the [1]  first leg of this  trade New England Slavers would go to the West Indies and buy sugar. [2]They would take the sugar back to New England and make it into Rum. [3] After making the Rum, New England slavers would sail to Virginia and buy Native American Slaves, and take the slaves and Rum to the West Indies and start the trade over again.

Black Native Americans who were not sold into slavery had to identify themselves as 'free colored", the same as freed African slaves. This was done by the government to make sure the Black Native Americans would lose their rights to land stolen by the whites. Since most Black Native Americans were sold into slavery or identified as "free colored" they did not mix with whites.

1. Using information from the text explain how selling Black Native Americans to work on plantations in the West Indies, probably  affected the Black Native American population.