An Afro-Indigenous History of the United States

INTRODUCTION
Thousands of volumes have been written about the historical and
social relations existing between Europeans and the Native
Peoples of the Americas and between Europeans and Africans,
but relations between Native Americans and Africans have been
sadly neglected. The entire Afro-Native American cultural
exchange and contact experience is a fascinating and significant
subject, but one largely obscured by a focus upon European
activity and European colonial relations with “peripheral”
subject peoples.
—JACK D. FORBES (Powhatan-Renapé and Lenape; cofounder, D-Q
University) 1
AFRO-INDIGENOUS HISTORY
I have been writing this book my whole life. I do not mean literally writing
every word for thirty-plus years. It began long before me. What do you
imagine when you think of Afro-Indigenous history? You might be more
familiar with the term “Black-Indian” or “Afro-Native.” 2 I use the term
“Afro-Indigenous” to mean both the intersecting relationship between
Black American and Native American peoples and those who identify both
as Black and Indigenous. Related to the terminology question, I am also
writing this book because of the myths that exist about Afro-Indigenous
histories and peoples.
The first myth that people think about when they consider Black and
Indigenous histories is the Cherokee enslavement of African peoples. Yes,
that happened, and that is perhaps the dominant discourse when we think of
African American and Native American intersecting histories. 3 However,