Official Site of True West Magazine, Since 1953
halfbreed
a halfbreed in the old west,how was he treated by the indains.also how was he treated by the whites .i play a halfbreed this would help me with the person that i'm playing thanks
Replies to This Discussion
-
Permalink Reply by Stan H on -
This is an interesting topic and drawing as wide a variety of answers as I am sure it would have back in the old days.
A few points, if I may.
1. Some nations accepted "mixed" blood and some did not. For example, the Blackfoot and the Nes Pierce would not accept an mixing, unless it was with a "slave" captured from another nation. Even then the offspring may be treated with scorn and abuse. A half-white was certainly expelled from the tribe. Now, some others, especaily in the southwest were more tolerent. As Johnny said above, there were a lot of inter-racial offspring among ther Apache and Navajo. Especaily with Mexican.
2. My Dad was born in Oklahoma (1911) and he often spoke about the disdain and poor treatment any "half-breed" was subjected to. Most where shunned by both white and red cultures.
3. Today, walk around Rapid City, SD and pay attention and you will still see some of the old prejudice against the mixed blood people as well as red people.
I think, in the old days, being a half-breed would have probably been a hard row to hoe, especailly in areas that had suffered from the Indian wars.
-
Permalink Reply by C. F. 'Charley' Eckhardt on -
Cherokees & Choctaws certainly accepted half-breeds, as did the Seminoles. There's an entire group of people known as 'Seminole negroes,' who are the product of escaped slaves from Florida, Alabama, & Georgia who fled into the Everglades & joined with the Seminoles. A bunch of them became Indian scouts on the Texas border in the 1870s, under a LT named John Lapham Bullis. I've known Cherokees & Choctaws you couldn't tell from pureblood Blacks.
At least the Piegan Blackfeet accepted mixed-bloods. There's a memoir by a squaw-man among the Piegans that details that. It was required reading in a cultural anthropology course I took in college back in the late '50s.
© 2009 Created by True West
