Historicizing Black-Indian relations in Virginia. Prologue : Lingering at the crossroads : African-Native American history and kinship lineage in Armstrong Archer's A compendium on slavery ; Notes on the state of Virginia : Jeffersonian thought and the rise of racial purity ideology in the eighteenth century ; Redefining race and identity : the Indian-Negro confusion and the changing state of Black-Indian relations in the nineteenth century ; Race purity and the law : the Racial Integrity Act and policing Black-Indian identity in the twentieth century ; Denying blackness : anthropological advocacy and the remaking of the Virginia Indians -- Black-Indian relations in the present state of Virginia. Beyond black and white : Afro-Indian identity in the case of Loving v. Virginia ; The racial integrity fight : confrontations of race and identity in Charles City County, Virginia ; Nottoway Indians, Afro-Indian identity, and the contemporary dilemma of state recognition ; Epilogue : Afro-Indian peoples of Virginia : the indelible thread of Black and Red
Summary
This book traces the history and legacy of the commonwealth of Virginia's effort to maintain racial purity and its impact on the relations between African Americans and Native Americans. The author tells the story of Virginia's racial purity campaign from the perspective of those who were disavowed or expelled from tribal communities due to their affiliation with people of African descent or because their physical attributes linked them to those of African ancestry. The author also explores the social consequences of the racial purity ethos for tribal communities that have refused to define Indian identity based on a denial of blackness
