Before we begin this fun column, some quick news. I hope to post chapter 18 on Tribes sometime today if time allows. Chapter 19 should follow in a few days. Today I have to pack, go to the shooting range and air out an AR-15 and a Smith and Wesson M&P with one of my staff members. Tonight is an elders’ meeting. Tomorrow morning, early, I fly out to Birmingham via Memphis. At B’ham I’ll rent a car and drive a couple of hours to a retreat center and give the first of three talks at a men’s retreat. On Saturday, I do the men’s retreat until the early afternoon when I drive to Tuscaloosa. Saturday evening I will speak at a mission’s dinner for the University Church of Christ. The next morning I will preach at both their services before driving back to B’ham and catching a plane to Lubbock, via Dallas, arriving late that night. On Monday I speak at chapel at LCU and then at an evening teen/college event. On Tuesday, I fly home! If I have email access I will update blogs and Tribes. If not… Keep me and my family in your prayers.

Now…the blog…

The terms "Black Dutch" and "Black German" mean the same thing, with "Black Dutch" being far more commonly heard, at least in the US. The good news is, there IS an official, US government-recognized group by that name. Bad news — you aren’t in it. The Dutch used to own a good bit of the World’s territories so, just as there are hyphenated Americans, there are hyphenated Dutch. The US Census has an entry for Black Dutch (#310). To qualify, you have to be from the Dutch West Indies and not be of Hispanic origin. It is in the same series as Aruba Islander, Bonaire Islander, Curacao Islander, etc. If you are not from the Dutch West Indies (aka Netherlands Antilles), you are not Black Dutch.

So what are you?

Seven other groups have been recorded using "Black Dutch" as a description of their heritage; an explanation of their different ways, customs, words, foods, and physical features.

1. Melungeons: We have discussed these proud, hidden people in the earliest blogs in this series. Melungeons are concentrated in East Tennessee, southwestern Virginia, and in the border regions those two states share with North Carolina. Between one and two hundred years ago significant numbers of Melungeons moved into Eastern Kentucky, West Virginia, Southern Ohio, and along the Sabine River in Louisiana and Texas, while smaller numbers moved into northern Alabama and the Ozark mountains. 

Melungeons are a mixed race people — by their own admission, now — who were in place and well established long before the main migrations of Europeans into the Appalachian and Smokey Mountains. Our first English language records of their presence come in the late 1600’s although there are Portuguese records (from Portugal and Brazil) from sixty years earlier. More on the Melungeons later in this series.

Melungeons have called themselves Welsh, Portuguese, Black Dutch, Black Irish, or Black German. Many still do. 

2. Ramapo Mountain People: Just covered in the last blog. They have Dutch words in their private language and most of them have Dutch last names.

3. Black Germans: These people originated in the Roman Legions. The Romans preferred stationing non-native people on the German border. They drew these troops from the Garamante, a tribe now known as Tubu, who came from central Sahara. In Roman times they roamed from Libya to southern Tunisia. The Romans took many of them, along with soldiers from present day Iran, and moved them in force to Germany for the Gallic Wars. The Iranian soldiers are known to history as the Sarmatians (now called Ossets) and Scythians. In present day Germany and Austria their descendants still live, some of them intermarrying with locals, but others sticking with their kind. Two mixed blood descendants of the Black Germans were Beethoven and Hitler. One wonders how Hitler would have reacted to the news that he was well infused with Black African blood along with a dollop of Persian? Some of these people moved — along with many other mass immigrations from Germany — into Texas, establishing their own communities. During the Civil War, many of these Germans were loyal to the Union and paid a terrible price. Other Black Germans moved into Louisiana and Missouri.

4. Romany: Because most of the gadjo (settled, housed) population considered all Gypsies or Romani to be tricksters, con artists, and thieves, many of them called themselves Black Dutch. That allowed a Rom to be accepted by the general population. Some called themselves Bohemians…which was technically true since so many came from the Czech Republic. As early as 1854 some newspapers wrote articles warning the populace that those calling themselves "Black Dutch" were really the Chicanere, a German term for thief. After then — since their cover was blown — many called themselves Pennsylvania Dutch. NOTE — most Germans who migrated into Pennsylvania also called themselves Pennsylvania Dutch so if you have one of them in your family tree there is no reason to automatically assume they were gypsies. On the other hand… they might have been. Those Rom who came here as indentured servants often were not able to reconnect with their Gypsy families. They adopted the name Black Dutch or Pennsylvania Dutch and entered the mainstream genetic pool.

5. Dutch and Belgian Jews: There are still communities of these individuals in Europe where they call themselves Sephardic Jews, Black Dutch, or a couple of other localized names. When they migrate into the US — which is still ongoing in a slow and quiet way — they tend to call themselves Black Dutch unless they are entering a major city. In the latter case, they assume that they can call themselves Jews without being discriminated against.

6. Mixed blood: We could call this group by any number of names: mulatto, maroon, mestee, mestis. Any number of people have some black, white, Semitic, and Native American blood in them, giving them a darker skin than their neighbors. They use the invented tales of their forefathers and call themselves Black Dutch (or they claim to be Cherokee in whole or part. In a future blog we will detail why they always pick the Cherokee).

7. Native Americans: Many Indians escaped the forced relocation of their tribes only to face such insuperable difficulties in establishing a business, finding friends, making a home, etc. that they moved into new areas and changed their heritage to become acceptable. They rarely did this in the northeast because it was way too easy to run into communities of real Germans and their cover would be blown. If your family is from the South or West and claims some Black Irish… this could be the real story.

But if you — or your ancestor — came from the Dutch West Indies, you aren’t Black Dutch. "Wait a minute!" (I hear you cry) "We had Black Irish in our family." Okay… we’ll talk about them next.