Darlene Wilson and Patricia Beaver, "Transgressions
in Race and Place: The Ubiquitous Native Grandmother
in America's Cultural Memory" in Barbara Smith, ed.,
Neither Separate Nor Equal: Women, Race, and Class
in the South, (Temple University
Press, 1999).
Subject
This essay appears in a recent collection of essays
about Southern women. For their subject, the
two authors - a historian and an anthropologist
working as an investigative team - examine the
phenomenon of mixed-ancestry women in Appalachia,
primarily those with Native American ancestry,
especially Cherokee. They suggest that the
mixed-ancestry Appalachian grandmother has been
ignored by mainstream historians who try to explain
Appalachian distinctiveness according to male
Euro-American models. One of the identities
given special attention is that of "Melungeon," a
tri-racial group found only in southwest Virginia,
eastern Kentucky and northeast Tennessee. For over a
century, this group has been the subject of polite
and not-so-polite scrutiny by elite society; for one
primary source, the authors point to the private
journals of Kentucky novelist John Fox, Jr.
(1862-1919) who was especially curious about these
"mountain niggers" of eastern Kentucky (p. 34).
Thesis
The authors argue that the history of the mountain
sections of Kentucky, Tennessee, and Virginia can be
understood only by including the social and family
history of Cherokee and African women and the means
by which they came to be mothers and grandmothers
within the self-described Scotch-Irish population of
the region. Officials in colonial period and
in early Virginia history encouraged Scotch-Irish
male emigrants to inter-marry with Cherokee women as
a way of encouraging their offspring to mimic
European lifestyles and trade patterns.
Another important detail that is often overlooked by
mainstream historians is that, during the first two
hundred years of contact with Europeans, racism was
not practiced by most southeastern Natives; in
effect, they did not consider darker-skinned
Africans to be inferior to white Europeans and would
only tend to become racist with the
introduction of chattel slavery in the late 1700s
and early 1800s. In the aftermath of
repeated episodes of legal and legislative
discrimination, especially after removal of the
Cherokees in 1838, mixed-ancestry people would be
forced into the upper ranges of the Appalachian
mountains in order to find sanctuary and save their
own lives, as well as those of their children.
By the end of the nineteenth century, even the
highest ranges of southern Appalachian were being
affected by Anglo-American patriarchy which "relied
upon strict control of women's sexuality" (p.
45). By these and other trends, the matrilineal,
matrilocal, matrifocal society of Melungeon and
other Cherokee descendents retreated into the
background but could not be totally bleached out of
southern Appalachia's social structure.
Anatomy
The essay is structured in three parts. First,
the phenomenon of mixed-ancestry Appalachian women
is outlined according to both myth and oral history.
In the second section, the authors present a wide
range of typical primary sources that are available
to those interested in the topic. In the final
section, they bring these elements together with
more recent oral accounts and events in order to
rescue these women from historical amnesia.
Method
The methods used in this essay are ethno historical,
examining an assortment of primary documents.
These include newspaper articles from the 1840s and
the 1890s, journal and diary entries by Kentucky
novelist John Fox, Jr. from the 1890s and early
1900s, official correspondence from the 1930s and
1940s, and oral histories and legends recorded
during the New Deal of the 1930s. The
authors read these documents with a critical eye,
teasing out a word-portrait of the mixed-ancestry
grandmother that suggests her independent spirit,
dark beauty, and deep sense of self-awareness.
This portrait is composed of women who are not shy
or meek wallflowers; they tended to act aggressively
and on their own behalf economically and socially,
even to the point of engaging in illicit
moonshine-making and dissolving
less-than-satisfactory marriages on their own terms.
Unfortunately, the different documents prove that
these women were also blamed until the modern era
for the 'transgressions' or sinful behavior of their
ancestors and, as lesser beings in a white-winged,
male-dominated society, they suffered tremendous,
even sometimes deadly, social and legal penalties
for their darker-skinned children and
less-than-white-enough lifestyles.
Prognosis / Place
Appalachian women have been described as
downtrodden, unattractive drudges who bear many
children and even more hardships silently and
without complaint. The authors of this
essay refuse to accept this description; instead,
they tell the reader that the women of the mountains
have been colorful, dynamic, and exciting
participants in their own destinies. This is
an important detour in the history of Appalachia and
offers several paths for future studies that do not
ignore the 'her-story' of mountain women.
Other Articles by
Darlene Wilson
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