Harlan Co Revolutionary War Plaque:Green descendents

Gayle Prettyhawk Phillips Bausmith

As Told by Danial Boone

Posted 25 Jan 2012 by GaylePhillipsBausmith

Descendants of Lewis J. GREEN Sr.First Generation

1. Lewis J. GREEN Sr. was born about 1724 in , Prince George County, Virginia. He died in Oct 1784 in Blue Spring Rd., Near Glasgow, Kentucky (then Virginia).

He was a Private who served under Captain Robert McKenzie in Tennessee and Kentucky. He was stationed at Fort Nashboro in Nashville,Tennessee. He served in the French and Indian War.

He enlisted in Capt Robert McKenzie's Co from Dinwiddie Co., VA at age 30 at the rank of Private in the French and Indian War and also served in the Rev War in VA.

He was a vestryman in the church at Kilgore Station (Church of England? ) and was very brown in complexion.

Lewis owned 41 acres of land adjacent to Porter's Fort in March of 1774.

A story about Lewis Green, Sr. told by Daniel Boone
Occurred near the Clinch River

Lewis and a brother-in-law, who resided near Blackmore's, on Clinch, about fifteen miles below Captain Gass' place, where Boone was sojourning, went out some considerable distance among the mountains to hunt. They selected a good hunting range, erected a cabin, and laid up in store's some jerked bear meat. One day when Green was alone, his companion being absent on the chase, a large bear made his appearance near camp, upon which Green shot and wounded the animal, which at the moment chanced to be in a sort of sink-hole at the base of a hill. Taking a circuit to get above and head the bear there being a slight snow upon the ground covered with sleet, Green's feet slipped from under him, and in spite of all his efforts to stop, himself, he partly slid and partly rolled down the declivity till he found himself in the sink-hole, where the wounded bear, enraged by his pain, flew at poor Green, tore and mangled his body in a shocking manner, totally destroying one of his eyes. When the bear had sufficiently gratified his revenge by gnawing his unresisting victim as as he wished, he suddenly departed, leaving the unfortunate hunter in a helpless and deplorable condition, all exposed, with his clothing torn in tatters, to the severities of the season.

His comrade at length returning, found and took him to camp. After awhile, thinking it impossible for Green to recover, his companion went out on pretense of hunting for fresh meat, and unfeelingly abandoned poor Green to his fate, reporting in the settlements that he had been killed by a bear. His [Green] little fire soon died away from his inability to provide fuel. Digging, with his knife, a hole or nest beside him in the ground-floor of his cabin, he managed to reach some wild turkey which had been saved, and with them lined the excavation and made himself quite a comfortable bed; and with the knife fastened to the end of a stick, he cut down, from time to time, bits of dried bear meat hanging over head, and upon this he sparingly subsisted. Recovering slowly, he could at length manage to get about. When spring opened, a party, of whom Boone is believed to have been on, went from Blackmore's settlement to bury Green's remains, with the brute of a brother-in-law for a guide; and to their utter astonishment, they met Green plodding his way towards home, and learned the sad story of his sufferings and desertion. The party were so indignant that they could scarcely refrain from laying violent hands on a wretch guilty of so much inhumanity to a helpless companion. Green though greatly disfigured lived many years.

Lewis married Elizabeth LAUDERDALE daughter of William LAUDERDALE about 1750 in , Culpepper County, Virginia. Elizabeth was born about 1730 in , Augusta County, Virginia. She died about 1805.

Lauderdales are descended from James Maitland Lauderdale, the Emigrant, who settled in Pennsylvania around 1714. He is thought to have moved from southwest Scotland, where the Lauderdale name is known in the 18th century, to Northern Ireland and thence to North America. See History of the Lauderdales in America Heritage, 1998, Clint Lauderdale,

We don't know from whom James Lauderdale, the Emigrant was descended, and he made no claims to be descended from the Earls of Lauderdale. Equally, he was firm in his assertion that he was a Maitland by origin, and this is the tradition which he handed down to his children and grandchildren and which was formally recorded by James Shelby Lauderdale in 1880. This refers to a meeting between his uncle Sam, and Dr David Lauderdale who met in 1830, and discovered that they shared a common family tradition. Another Lauderdale from New York was met in 1880 in St Louis with a similar tale.

Lauderdale as a family name, not connected with the title, first appears in the Scottish parish records in Galloway in the early 18th century with the birth of Jean Lauderdale in 1737, the daughter of James Lauderdale at Beith, Ayr.

Maitlands have lived in or been connected with Galloway since 1360, and our understanding of James the Emigrant is that he came from that part of Scotland, so the combination of geography, name and his family tradition makes it almost certain that he was a Maitland by origin, and as such, related by blood to the Earls of Lauderdale, but not descended from them.

Washington Co., VA
Elizabeth, who appears in the records of Washington County in 1797 as “old and infirm” and gave power of attorney to “my son-in-law Moses Foley.” She died about 1803, intestate. Appraisal of here estate was presented to the court by Zachariah Green

there were no babies left;" James Scott, Trail of Tears survivor

SHARING SOME HISTORY
"After our walk, there were no babies left;"

JAMES SCOTT
The late James Scott, Who died around 1944 at about 110 years of age.
He walked the Trail of Tears from the Alabama/Georgia region to Oklahoma when he was 7 to 8 years old. His parents died during the removal.
He was from Okemah, Oklahoma and belonged to Greenleaf Ceremonial Ground.
Since he had outlived most of of his contemporaries, he was a major resource on Creek history and culture. He was well-known for his storytelling abilities.
With others he incorporated Greenleaf church in 1910, a little ways from Greenleaf traditional ceremonial grounds and stayed in touch with both groups.
At over 100 years old, Scott was alert and talkative. He chewed tobacco and carried his own medicine pouch.
The following is his recollection of The Trail of Tears:

James Scott

“One morning, when it was already getting cold, a runner came to our village out of breath, saying haltingly “Talking papers. They are sending people with talking papers-people are already disappearing-what’s left behind is being stolen. They are sending us to a burial ground. They keep talking about judgment day. We need to either hide or mix with other tribes up north. These demons are shooting Indians if we resist. I have to warn the next village.” He left and, even though I was just a boy, I knew that something very bad was about to happen-A dark cloud hovered over us. I don’t know how many days went by. We started gathering provisions, we talked about other tribal towns, The earth trembled, and even the trees seemed to be shaking.
The hovering dark cloud brought the evil men sooner than we expected. The soldiers started shooting. The whites rounded us up like cattle and put shackles on the strong men.
There was a silent cry-no words-so devastating-silent prayers-then low humming of the chant of communal encouragement. Gun butts were hitting mouths. That morning cold winds blew-like judgment day.
We did not know where we were heading. There were talking papers-more talking papers-The whites would keep on bringing talking papers, and tragedy always followed. Along the trail, they split us up. I lost my mother and father and ended up with an uncle. Little babies sometimes would have their head smashed against a tree. Strong shackled men were used for pulling wagons and chopping wood. Those who got sick were left or dumped by the soldiers. There was hardly any food-People were hungry, cold, and frost bitten. The whites roasted meat and the aroma made you want to die. Each time someone fell, they sacrificed, saying, “Take my blanket-I am going home.” The chilling wind never left us-we have seen blizzards-now we were in one. Even Strong Buffalo would not have survived such a winter. Somehow, the Creator was with us. Most of the time, children walked; However, sometimes they would be allowed to ride in a wagon with older folks. About the time we reached Indian territory. There were very few of us-mostly older children and shackled men. After our walk, there were no babies left; they killed the babies. Hardly any women made it. I only had one uncle left. We began with about 500 in our group and we wound up with 50 and we wound up near Okemah, Asilanabi, Greenleaf, The places where we finished growing up. These places were near some Christian Indians who had already got there before us. Nitaspoki-The last day – I was always looking for it, but it did not come. It took 20 years for the nightmares to lessen.”

Source: “A Sacred Path
The Way of the Muscogee Creeks”
Photo is of James Scott

Capture of Ann and Mary Bush and Killing of William Dorton By Emory L. Hamilton

Capture of Ann and Mary Bush and Killing of William Dorton By Emory L. Hamilton

Posted 04 Dec 2009 by Kimberly Jo Everett

http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~varussel/indian/41.html

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From the unpublished manuscript, Indian Atrocities Along the Clinch, Powell and Holston Rivers, pages 84-85.

James Fraley in his Revolutionary war pension statement filed in Floyd Co., KY, says:

In April, the date has escaped him, 1780, he enlisted for one year, in the County of Washington and State of Virginia, as an Indian Spy, under Col. Campbell, Capt. Snoddy and Lt. Cowan, to spy in the same section. Early in June the Indians made their appearance in his quarter of Washington county (later Russell Co.). They first stole many horses. In July they killed one Dorton and stole two girls, to-wit: Ann and Mary Bush, and made off for Canada. They succeeded in getting down on the waters of Sandy with them as far as Jenny's (1) Creek in Floyd County, about twelve miles from the courthouse. At that time there was not a single white person living in Floyd County (Ky). It was certainly an Indian country then. Our company came up to the Indians when they were in the act of skinning a buffalo they had just killed. Our men fired on the Indians and they retreated to the camp about 200 yards distant, and as they ran by they tomahawked Ann Bush. Mary jumped down the bank and escaped any violence. Ann Bush got over it (the tomahawking) and was afterwards tomahawked again and still survived.

Ann and Mary Bush were the daughters of James and Mary Bush of Castlewood, Russell Co., VA. Ann Bush married Henry Neece, and by him had the following children: James, Henry, Jane, Austin, Jacon and John. That she was dead before October 4, 1825, is evidenced by this order of the court of Russell Co. (2): "Ordered that it be certified to the Registrar of the Land Office, Mary Bush, devisee of James Bush, deceased, and Polly, James, Henry, Jane, Austin, Jacon and John, who are all the heirs at law of Ann Neece, deceased, devisee of the said James Bush, deceased, are entitled to the land mentioned in the last will (3) and testament of James Bush, deceased, which have been surveyed, but not patented in this county."

Mary, the other daughter of James Bush, who was captured by the Indians, was born in 1765, married a Mr. Turner, and was still living in Russell Co., VA, with her son, Hugh Turner in 1850 (4), at the age of 85 years.

The "one Dorton" whom James Fraley says the Indians killed, was probably old William Dorton, who built Dorton's Fort, about one mile southeast of Nickelsville, VA, in the present Scott Co., on what was later known as the Combs Farm.

The will (5) of William Dorton is recorded in Washington Co., VA, but the date of will or probation is not shown. He leaves his estate to his wife Elizabeth, and his children, William, Moses, Edward, and Sally. One the 17th of June, 1783, the will of William Dorton was produced in court and proved by the oaths of John Damron and William Dorton, Jr., and ordered to be recorded. That William Dorton was dead prior to 1782 is proven by the fact that his widow Elizabeth Dorton only appears on the 1782 tithable list of Washington Co.

William Dorton, Jr, was one of the party who went in search of the Indians led by the half-breed Benge when they murdered and captured the Livingston family, the last raid on the Virginia frontier in 1794.

(1) So named because Jenny Wiley crossed this creek after her escape from the Indians in 1790.
(2) Russell Co., VA, Court Order Book B
(3) Russell Co., VA, Will Book 1, page 41, dated June 20, 1801. Probated August 2, 1808.
(4) 1850 Census of Russell Co., VA.
(5) Washington Co., VA Will Book 1, page 40.

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This file contributed by: Rhonda Robertson

Note, 16 Aug 2002: New information has come to light that proves that the "one Dorton" who was killed was not old William Dorton, but rather a son of William Dorton, and brother of Edward Dorton. This is proven in the Revolutionary Pension application statement of Edward Dorton in 1833 in Floyd Co., KY. There is a conflict in the dates between James Fraley's statement and Edward Dorton's statment, however, Edward Dorton stated that Michael Auxier, a Litton (This was Burton Litton) and William Priest were also killed. The administration of Burton Litton's estate was granted to his wife Elizabeth on 17 Aug 1779 which is prior to the date given by James Fraley. Isaac Crabtree in his Revolutionary pension statement gives the date of these killings as about the last of May 1778. Here is a copy of the pension statement of Edward Dorton:

Revolutionary War pension record from National Archives

Edward Dorton

State of Kentucky

Floyd County

On the 12th day of December 1833, personally appears before the distingushed Justice of the Peace for the county aforesaid now sitting, Edward Dorton a resident of Kentucky in the county of Floyd, aged eighty two years: who being first duly sworn according to the law doth on his oath make the following declaration in order to obtain the benefit of the act of Congress passed June 7, 1832; that he entered in the service of the United States under the following named officers and served as herein stated; that in the spring of 1776 the Indians became troublesome in the western part of Virginia so much so that it prevented a band of immigrants from proceeding to Kentucky. Said applicant was then residing in Washington County, Virginia and on the waters of Powell's River in Powell's Valley. Col. William Campbell the Col. of the county ordered that a volunteer company should be raised to supress the Indians: which company this applicant states he enlisted in as a volunteer for "six months" in the month of March 1776, the day of the month not recollected.

Under Capt. Bickley and Lieutenant Cowan, Ensign Robinson the company immediately commenced their march down Powell's Valley to "Cumberland Gap" and there we were fired upon by the Indians. The firing was continued warnly by both sides for some time and the Indians gave way and fled. From their painted appearance we apprehended a more formidable band against us and accordingly retreated in all possible speed to the settlements and ascertained that the Indians we fought was the Cherokees. We remained but a short time and being joined by more volunteers we again marched to the frontier. We got back on the last of July 1776. HAving been back but a short time we was attacked near Cumberland Mountain by about forty Indians. We outnumbered them a few. The fighting commenced first by the Indians who lay concealed behind old logs and rocks. The skirmish lasted for three hours in which a few Indians were killed. Our company lost several--Dickenson, Humphery, and Solomon Kendrick. We remained here till August (the last part) and went back to the settlement all broke up and forted as they had done for six years before. We guarded the fort till late in November. We all recieved discharges certifying our service.

On the first day of April next year 1777 the Indians again returned to Clinch and Powell's Valley and commenced murdering and plundering the settlements in that region. A volunteer company was raised by Capt. John Snoddy and Lieutenant Robinson (my ensign the year before) this pursant to Col. Campbell's orders, who was our Col., I volunteered for six months again. The fort was useless unless a force was kept in the field against the Indians, the settlements had no security. Col. Campbell did not accompany us but gave us his orders.

About this time the Tories in North Carolina continued their operations and they were aided by a few from the South Fork of the Holston who frequently stole horses belonging to the Whigs and carried them to the Tories in Carolina. Our company marched down to the mouth of the North Fork of the Holston and took a western direction for Powell Valley on the frontiers. Here we remained scouting till August 1777, when we was attacked by a band of hostile Indians at day break. After an hour skirmish and running fight we was forced to retreat. The brother of this applicant was killed and skelpt by the Indians, also a man by the name Michael Auxier and another by the name of Litton and one William Priest was killed and several wounded. The Cherokee Indians was assembling in large numbers down Holston to commence war. They had painted themselves and had the war dance and for fear of being cut off we retreated to the settlements.

Cocke of Carolina and Christy of Virginia marched to beat down the Cherokees. The Indians formed a plan to fall on the settlements on the Clinch and Gen. Christy sent one Martin to inform the fort of it. We all broke up and went to Abingdon. Not long after this Christy made peace with the Indians at the Long Islands which according to the applicants recollection in June 1777.

He wishes to be understood that he cannot be positive as to dates but knows it was sometime before Col. Campbell went to Carolina when the applicant and his brother went with him. He then received his discharge from duty for his "six months". In the spring of 1778 the Shawnee Indians from over the Ohio broke out in the Clinch settlements in March 1778. The applicant enlisted for one year to scout and spy under Capt. Lewis and Lieutenant Hawkins. This was the manner in which the company was engaged. Col. Campbell states he was authorized to run the company for the purpose and that each man should recieve pay. The company divided in two's and four's and we ranged and spied all that summer and winter and until April 1779.

We crossed frequently behind Cumberland Mountain down on the Kentucky and Big Sandy Rivers. They would generally leave the country for Kentucky or thier nation in November to hunt and return early in the spring.

This applicant served out his time and applied for his pay and Governor Patrick Henry stated that the state was not bound to pay; this applicant never got his pay. In July 1780 the day of the month not recollected this applicant and one of his brothers was prevailed on by Col. Campbell to accompany him against the Tories and British in the Carolinas and they did so and enlisted as new volunteers for no certain time. Something prevented us from starting immediately.

Col. Campbell got word from Col. Cleveland that the Tories had fled from the Haw River and many from PeeDee and they had joined Ferguson (Major or Col.). We started from Abingdon all on horses and our Capt. was by the name of Looney. He thinks Col. Campbell's brother was a Capt. also. We crossed the Catawba high up in Burk's County, N.C. and came up with the British at a place called King's Mountain. Campbell was joined by Col. Cleveland and Major Shelby and Col. Sevier. There was a Frenchman there also by the name of Malmaday (this applicant thinks he was a Major) and Gen. McDowell were all on horses. When we got within one mile of the mountain we all hitched our horses and left them in care of some militia companies.

The whole of us was divided; part of Campbell's men fell under Cleveland and one Sevier and Wilson. This applicant was one of them and marched up. They were on the side of the mountain. The firing commenced on the right wing (commanded by Campbell) and Shebly on the left, Cleveland in the center. The British with bayonets charged upon Cleveland's men and forced us to give back, but we all took turns. The battle lasted for some time and we made them all prisoners. The troops, or part, went over to Charlotte and we took some of the prisoners along. Gates' army was at Charlotte. From there we went to Hillsboro, N.C. and remained there but a few days and again went back to Charlotte where we all ------. Gen. Greene took command, this was in December 1780 or 1781.

In January I hired my horse to the Government of N.C. and belonged then to the light infantry. Our whole army went to Cheraw Hills, after the battle of the Cowpens we all retreated to Virginia. In February or March we gave the enemy battle at Guilford where we was defeated. A few days after this I left the service and returned home. I knew many officers during the service, to wit: Col. Washington, Capt. Charles Y. Wilson, Gen. Gates, Gen. Huger, Gen. Davis and Col. Davidson, Maj. Malmady, Col. Sevier, Maj. Shelby, Col. Wilson, Capt. Thomas H. Davis, and Lieutenant Hinner, Col. Hogan, Gen. Rutherford and many others. I have no documentary evidence in my favor. I received three discharges, the last time I did not receive a discharge but a recommendation. I do not know what has become of them. The fact was I cared nothing about them for it has been more than fifty years since. He hereby relinquishes his every claim whatever to a pension or annuity except the present one. He declares his name is not on the pension roll of the agency of any state: Sworn and subscribed the day and date aforesaid:

Edward Darten

American Anthropological Association Statement on Race

American Anthropological Association
Statement on Race 
May 1998

The following statement was adopted by the Executive Board of the American Anthropological Association, acting on a draft prepared by a committee of representative American anthropologists. It does not reflect a consensus of all members of the AAA, as individuals vary in their approaches to the study of "race." We believe that it represents generally the contemporary thinking and scholarly positions of a majority of anthropologists.

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In the United States both scholars and the general public have been conditioned to viewing human races as natural and separate divisions within the human species based on visible physical differences. With the vast expansion of scientific knowledge in this century, however, it has become clear that human populations are not unambiguous, clearly demarcated, biologically distinct groups. Evidence from the analysis of genetics (e.g., DNA) indicates that most physical variation, about 94%, lies within so-called racial groups. Conventional geographic "racial" groupings differ from one another only in about 6% of their genes. This means that there is greater variation within "racial" groups than between them. In neighboring populations there is much overlapping of genes and their phenotypic (physical) expressions. Throughout history whenever different groups have come into contact, they have interbred. The continued sharing of genetic materials has maintained all of humankind as a single species.

Physical variations in any given trait tend to occur gradually rather than abruptly over geographic areas. And because physical traits are inherited independently of one another, knowing the range of one trait does not predict the presence of others. For example, skin color varies largely from light in the temperate areas in the north to dark in the tropical areas in the south; its intensity is not related to nose shape or hair texture. Dark skin may be associated with frizzy or kinky hair or curly or wavy or straight hair, all of which are found among different indigenous peoples in tropical regions. These facts render any attempt to establish lines of division among biological populations both arbitrary and subjective.

Historical research has shown that the idea of "race" has always carried more meanings than mere physical differences; indeed, physical variations in the human species have no meaning except the social ones that humans put on them. Today scholars in many fields argue that "race" as it is understood in the United States of America was a social mechanism invented during the 18th century to refer to those populations brought together in colonial America: the English and other European settlers, the conquered Indian peoples, and those peoples of Africa brought in to provide slave labor.

From its inception, this modern concept of "race" was modeled after an ancient theorem of the Great Chain of Being, which posited natural categories on a hierarchy established by God or nature. Thus "race" was a mode of classification linked specifically to peoples in the colonial situation. It subsumed a growing ideology of inequality devised to rationalize European attitudes and treatment of the conquered and enslaved peoples. Proponents of slavery in particular during the 19th century used "race" to justify the retention of slavery. The ideology magnified the differences among Europeans, Africans, and Indians, established a rigid hierarchy of socially exclusive categories underscored and bolstered unequal rank and status differences, and provided the rationalization that the inequality was natural or God-given. The different physical traits of African-Americans and Indians became markers or symbols of their status differences.

As they were constructing US society, leaders among European-Americans fabricated the cultural/behavioral characteristics associated with each "race," linking superior traits with Europeans and negative and inferior ones to blacks and Indians. Numerous arbitrary and fictitious beliefs about the different peoples were institutionalized and deeply embedded in American thought.

Early in the 19th century the growing fields of science began to reflect the public consciousness about human differences. Differences among the "racial" categories were projected to their greatest extreme when the argument was posed that Africans, Indians, and Europeans were separate species, with Africans the least human and closer taxonomically to apes.

Ultimately "race" as an ideology about human differences was subsequently spread to other areas of the world. It became a strategy for dividing, ranking, and controlling colonized people used by colonial powers everywhere. But it was not limited to the colonial situation. In the latter part of the 19th century it was employed by Europeans to rank one another and to justify social, economic, and political inequalities among their peoples. During World War II, the Nazis under Adolf Hitler enjoined the expanded ideology of "race" and "racial" differences and took them to a logical end: the extermination of 11 million people of "inferior races" (e.g., Jews, Gypsies, Africans, homosexuals, and so forth) and other unspeakable brutalities of the Holocaust.

"Race" thus evolved as a worldview, a body of prejudgments that distorts our ideas about human differences and group behavior. Racial beliefs constitute myths about the diversity in the human species and about the abilities and behavior of people homogenized into "racial" categories. The myths fused behavior and physical features together in the public mind, impeding our comprehension of both biological variations and cultural behavior, implying that both are genetically determined. Racial myths bear no relationship to the reality of human capabilities or behavior. Scientists today find that reliance on such folk beliefs about human differences in research has led to countless errors.

At the end of the 20th century, we now understand that human cultural behavior is learned, conditioned into infants beginning at birth, and always subject to modification. No human is born with a built-in culture or language. Our temperaments, dispositions, and personalities, regardless of genetic propensities, are developed within sets of meanings and values that we call "culture." Studies of infant and early childhood learning and behavior attest to the reality of our cultures in forming who we are.

It is a basic tenet of anthropological knowledge that all normal human beings have the capacity to learn any cultural behavior. The American experience with immigrants from hundreds of different language and cultural backgrounds who have acquired some version of American culture traits and behavior is the clearest evidence of this fact. Moreover, people of all physical variations have learned different cultural behaviors and continue to do so as modern transportation moves millions of immigrants around the world.

How people have been accepted and treated within the context of a given society or culture has a direct impact on how they perform in that society. The "racial" worldview was invented to assign some groups to perpetual low status, while others were permitted access to privilege, power, and wealth. The tragedy in the United States has been that the policies and practices stemming from this worldview succeeded all too well in constructing unequal populations among Europeans, Native Americans, and peoples of African descent. Given what we know about the capacity of normal humans to achieve and function within any culture, we conclude that present-day inequalities between so-called "racial" groups are not consequences of their biological inheritance but products of historical and contemporary social, economic, educational, and political circumstances.

[Note: For further information on human biological variations, see the statement prepared and issued by the American Association of Physical Anthropologists, 1996 (AJPA 101:569-570).]

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AAA Position Paper on Race: Comments?

indian child handcuffs

As a result of public confusion about the meaning of "race," claims as to major biological differences among "races" continue to be advanced. Stemming from past AAA actions designed to address public misconceptions on race and intelligence, the need was apparent for a clear AAA statement on the biology and politics of race that would be educational and informational. Rather than wait for each spurious claim to be raised, the AAA Executive Board determined that the Association should prepare a statement for approval by the Association and elicit member input.

Commissioned by the Executive Board of the American Anthropological Association, a position paper on race was authored by Audrey Smedley (Race in North America: Origin and Evolution of a Worldview, 1993) and thrice reviewed by a working group of prominent anthropologists: George Armelagos, Michael Blakey, C. Loring Brace, Alan Goodman, Faye Harrison, Jonathan Marks, Yolanda Moses, and Carol Mukhopadhyay. A draft of the current paper was published in the September 1997 Anthropology Newsletter and posted ont the AAA website http://www.aaanet.org for a number of months, and member comments were requested. While Smedley assumed authorship of the final draft, she received comments not only from the working group but also from the AAA membership and other interested readers. The paper above was adopted by the AAA Executive Board on May 17, 1998, as an official statement of AAA's position on "race."

Walter Plecker: genocidal white supremacist, ‘Undesirables born amongst us’

How a long-dead white supremacist still threatens the future of Virginia’s Indian tribes

By Joe Heim July 1 at 7:00 AM

 

Walter A. Plecker’s goal as Virginia’s registrar of vital statistics was to ban race-mixing. He declared there were no true Indians left because of marriages with blacks. (Richmond Times-Dispatch)

Virginia’s Indian tribes have faced numerous obstacles in their decades-old quest for federal recognition. But one person has long stood in their way — and he’s been dead for 68 years.
Walter Plecker — a physician, eugenicist and avowed white supremacist — ran Virginia’s Bureau of Vital Statistics with single-minded resolve over 34 years in the first half of the 20th century.
Though he died in 1947, Plecker’s shadow still lingers over the state, a vestige of a vicious era when racist practices were an integral part of government policy and Virginia officials ruthlessly enforced laws created to protect what they considered a master white race.
For Virginia’s Indians, the policies championed by Plecker threatened their very existence, nearly wiping out the tribes who greeted the country’s first English settlers and who claim Pocahontas as an ancestor. This month, the legacy of those laws could again help sabotage an effort by the Pamunkey people to become the state’s first federally recognized tribe.

[ A famed Virginia Indian tribe seeks federal recognition amid casino fears]

Obsessed with the idea of white superiority, Plecker championed legislation that would codify the idea that people with one drop of “Negro” blood could not be classified as white. His efforts led the Virginia legislature to pass the Racial Integrity Act of 1924, a law that criminalized interracial marriage and also required that every birth in the state be recorded by race with the only options being “White” and “Colored.”
Plecker was proud of the law and his role in creating it. It was, he said, “the most perfect expression of the white ideal, and the most important eugenical effort that has been made in 4,000 years.”
The act didn’t just make blacks in Virginia second-class citizens — it also erased any acknowledgment of Indians, whom Plecker claimed no longer truly existed in the commonwealth. With a stroke of a pen, Virginia was on a path to eliminating the identity of the Pamunkey, the Mattaponi, the Chickahominy, the Monacan, the Rappahannock, the Nansemond and the rest of Virginia’s tribes.

Entering the Pamunkey reservation is a sign announcing the tribe. The tribe is the smallest and oldest documented tribe in Virginia. (Timothy C. Wright/For the Washington Post)

 

The tribal center for the Chickahominy tribe is located deep in the countryside of rural Virginia not far from the small town of Providence Forge. (Timothy C. Wright/For the Washington Post)

“He told us we had no right to exist as people,” said Powhatan Red Cloud-Owen, a Vietnam veteran who belongs to the 850-member Chickahominy tribe. “He tried to destroy a people like Hitler did. It was a genocide inside of this great country of ours.”

‘It was devastating’

Plecker. For Virginia Indians, the name is an expletive.
“I would call him the villain in our sacred story,” says Karenne Wood, 55, a member of the Monacan, the largest of the Virginia tribes with more than 2,000 members. “As soon as you raise his name, people make bad faces.”
Standing in the graveyard adjacent to the Chickahominy Tribal Center, Steve Adkins, the 69-year-old chief of the tribe in Providence Forge, about 20 miles southeast of Richmond, says he is pained by what his people endured as a result of the Racial Integrity Act.

Chickahominy Indian Chief Steve Adkins speaks about the impact of Walter Plecker on the lives of Virginia's Chickahominy tribe and Virginia Native Americans. (Timothy C. Wright/For the Washington Post)

“It forbade giving your child an Indian name,”Adkins says. “And it caused people like my mom and dad to have to go to Washington, D.C., to be married as Indians.”
Others simply left Virginia rather than stay where they could no longer call themselves Indians.
“It caused separations of families,” Adkins says. “It was devastating.”
The devastation lasted decades. Plecker directed registrars around the state to change birth certificates, to cross out Indian and write in “Colored.” He had Indian children removed from white schools and Indian patients removed from white hospitals. He pushed back against Native Americans who tried to maintain their tribal identity, and he rejected federal efforts to acknowledge the existence of Indians in the state.
“Plecker saw Indian identity as dangerous, because he believed it would simply be used as a way station by people who ultimately just wanted to be classified as white,” says Mikaela Adams, assistant professor of Native American history at the University of Mississippi. “Of course, there were many reasons that white classification in 20th century Virginia was extremely beneficial. It meant access to better schools, homes. It meant, essentially, freedom.”
Instead, Indians lost freedoms and very nearly lost their identity. That was Plecker’s goal, as he explained in a 1943 letter that he addressed to “Local Registrars, Clerks, Legislators, and others responsible for, and interested in, the prevention of racial intermixture.”
“Public records in the office of the Bureau of Vital Statistics, and in the State Library, indicate that there does not exist today a descendant of the Virginia ancestors claiming to be an Indian who is unmixed with negro blood,” he wrote. In other words, Virginia was rid of Indians.

A registration of birth and color record for children in Virginia used during Plecker’s term as the first registrar of Virginia’s Bureau of Vital Statistics. It required a strict definition of race that eliminated the category of Native American. This was part of the Racial Integrity Act of 1924. (Library of Virginia)

Virginia would eventually repudiate the Racial Integrity Act. The law was effectively canceled out in 1967 when the Supreme Court ruled in favor of an interracial Virginia couple’s right to marry in Loving v. Virginia. And in 2002, then-Gov. Mark Warner (D) officially apologized for the commonwealth’s role. But some of the damage has been irreparable.
“Plecker participated in an official disappearance of these tribes,” says Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.). “So he might be discredited and the official policy might be to apologize for him, but since the tribes haven’t been recognized, he still has accomplished something that has not been reversed. He’s still winning.”

‘Undesirables born amongst us’

Walter Ashby Plecker was born into a prosperous slave-owning Virginia family on April 2, 1861, just 10 days before the onset of the Civil War. His father joined the Confederate Army in the South’s fight to preserve slavery.
After graduating in 1880 from Hoover Military Academy in Staunton, Va., Plecker attended the University of Maryland Medical School where he earned his medical degree in 1885. He worked as a public health doctor in Virginia and Alabama before being appointed registrar of Virginia’s Bureau of Vital Statistics in 1912. The seemingly functionary title was misleading. It was in that office that Plecker would implement some of the most unapologetically racist government policies of the past century.
At the time, eugenics, a pseudo-scientific philosophy espousing racial purity and white genetic superiority, was gaining favor in parts of the United States, not just as a privately held view, but as a matter of public policy. Virginia was a stronghold of this nascent eugenicist movement.
Plecker was an early member of the Anglo-Saxon Clubs of America, an organization founded in Richmond by two white supremacists that pushed for laws that forbid interracial marriage and opposed immigration by anyone other than Northern European whites.
For Plecker, who married but had no children, there was nothing lower than a mixed-race child. “The worst forms of undesirables born amongst us are those whose parents are of different races,” he said.
The Racial Integrity Act was just one pillar in the legislative legacy that Plecker and the eugenicists created. They also lobbied for the Eugenical Sterilization Act that was signed into law in 1924. That allowed the state to sterilize individuals “afflicted with hereditary forms of insanity that are recurrent, idiocy, imbecility, feeble-mindedness or epilepsy.” That law was not repealed until 1974. In February, the Virginia General Assembly agreed to compensate those who were forcibly sterilized, paying each $25,000.

[Virginia General Assembly votes to compensate eugenics victims ]

Plecker’s impact was also felt well beyond Virginia. He lobbied the Census Bureau beginning in 1930 to stop using the category “mulatto” to count mixed-race citizens. Indicating that you were of more than one race was not allowed until the 2000 census.

Pamunkey Chief Kevin Brown goes over documents collected from England being used to prove the existence of the tribe to federal officials in Washington. (Timothy C. Wright/For The Washington Post)

Walter Plecker sent this letter in December 1943 to reinforce his views and the laws he drafted. Plecker’s policies pressured state agencies to reclassify most citizens claiming Indian identity as colored. (Library of Virginia)

 

He was obsessed with genealogy and tracing the racial background of everyone in the state. In her book, “Pocahontas’s People: The Powhatan Indians of Virginia Through Four Centuries,” Old Dominion University historian Helen Rountree recalls an exchange of letters between Plecker and U.S. Commissioner of Indian Affairs John Collier in 1943. Collier believed that Plecker’s policy regarding Indians was too strict. Plecker countered that his policy was justified because of his extensive research into race records dating back a century.
“Your staff member is probably correct in his surmise that Hitler’s genealogical study of the Jews is not more complete,” Plecker boasted.
Plecker retired in 1946. Despite his outsized role in Virginia’s history, he remains a relatively unknown figure. Though the history of racism and Jim Crow is taught in Virginia’s schools, neither Plecker nor the Racial Integrity Act are mentioned, according to the Virginia Department of Education.
There is perhaps only one story about Plecker that provides Virginia’s Indians some satisfaction. On Aug. 2, 1947, a year after retiring, Plecker stepped into a Richmond street without looking and was hit and killed by a passing vehicle. He was 86.
“That was good for us,” says Adkins, with a wry smile. “He was going strong until the end. He wasn’t stopping.”

Blitz of opposition

There are currently 566 federally recognized Indian tribes, none of which are from Virginia. In order to receive federal recognition, and be eligible for the housing, education and health-care funding that comes with it, Indian tribes need to meet several criteria heavily weighted to historical documentation.
Because Plecker spent almost all of his public life trying to eliminate the recorded existence of Virginia’s Indians, it has made attaining federal recognition all the more difficult for the tribes.

Then-Virginia Gov. Robert F. McDonnell joins the chiefs and members of the Pamunkey and Mattoponi Tribes for the annual Tax Tribute Ceremony at the Executive Mansion in 2010. (Photo courtesy of Michaele White, governor’s photographer)

 

Andrew Tyler, a member of the Cherokee tribe and a 20-year veteran of the U.S. Air Force, poses for a photograph during a break in dancing at the Chickahominy Tribal Center near Providence Forge. (Timothy C. Wright/For the Washington Post)

 

The 208-member Pamunkey tribe has chosen to pursue recognition through the Bureau of Indian Affairs, a laborious and expensive process that has lasted years. The bureau was expected to rule earlier this year on whether to grant the Pamunkey federal recognition. But at the last minute, following a blitz of opposition, that decision was postponed.

[Decision delayed on federal recognition for Virginia Indian tribe]

Leading the fight against the Pamunkey bid was casino giant MGM, which is opening a $1.2 billion casino in Princes George’s County next year and does not want competition in Virginia. The Pamunkey have not said whether they would open a casino if they were granted recognition, but MGM isn’t waiting to find out. It teamed up with Stand Up for California, an organization that has fought tribal casinos, to oppose Pamunkey recognition.
In March, Stand Up for California wrote to the Bureau of Indian Affairs saying that some members of the tribe descended not from Indians, but African Americans, and therefore should not be recognized. For Virginia Indian tribes and their supporters, it was galling to hear the same argument that Plecker once made now being repeated to again challenge their identity.
“The whole spectacle of folks ganging up on these tribes, in my view just promoted and funded by the casino industry, is just outrageous,” said Kaine, the senator. “They’re building off the back of a horrific eugenicist to try and make their argument.”
MGM officials rejected that characterization. “We object to any depiction that we are in any way associated with the despicable practice” perpetrated by Plecker, said company spokesman Gordon Absher. “MGM Resorts is a national leader in diversity and inclusion. Insinuations to the contrary cannot be further from the truth.”
Kaine and members of both parties in Virginia’s congressional delegation have long supported passage of the Thomasina E. Jordan bill, which would provide federal recognition through Congress for six Virginia tribes: the Chickahominy, Eastern Chickahominy, Monacan, Nansemond, Upper Mattaponi and Rappahannock. To help win political support, the six tribes gave up the right to open casinos or other gambling ventures.
Kaine says he is encouraged that the bill passed out of the Senate subcommittee early in this legislative session and is hopeful that it will do the same in the House so that it can eventually be voted on by the entire Congress.
For Steve Adkins, the Chickahominy chief, federal recognition would stamp out all of Plecker’s efforts by making a statement: “We are who we say we are.”

Seth Adkins, a member of Virginia's Chickahominy Tribe, dances at the Chickahominy Tribal Center near Providence Forge. The tribe hosts a regular meeting to teach the history and culture of Native Americans. (Timothy C. Wright/For the Washington Post)

Going home

Powhatan Red Cloud-Owen’s mother, Minnie Adkins, was 25 when the Racial Integrity Act was passed. The idea that she would no longer be considered an Indian in Virginia was so distressing that she and her sister left their tiny hometown and moved to New York. There they took jobs cleaning homes, and Minnie eventually married an Indian from another tribe and settled in Queens. She was proud of being a Chickahominy and would help out at the American Indian Community House, a meeting place for Indians from all over the country who had moved to New York.
Red-Cloud Owen grew up in New York, but he spent his summers in Virginia with his cousins and other members of the tribe. At 15, he moved to Virginia so that he could attend an all-Indian school. He decided to stay for good, but his mother would never return to live in Virginia again. She died in 1974.
Before she died, however, she made a request, Red-Cloud Owen says. She wanted to be buried in the Chickahominy tribal cemetery, next to the tribal center and near the small town where she grew up and knew the name of everyone and every tree. Buried in Virginia. Buried as an Indian.

Joe Heim joined The Post in 1999. He is currently a staff writer for the Metro section's Local Enterprise team. He also writes Just Asking, a weekly Q&A column in the Sunday magazine and is the paper's resident Downton Abbey expert.

Bering Strait Theory, Pt. 1: How Dogma Trumped Science

Bering Strait Theory, Pt. 1: How Dogma Trumped Science

Alex Ewen

6/13/14

The discovery and examination of the ancient Mexican skeleton, Naia, has led scientists to once again rethink the origins of American Indians. While there has been a rancorous debate over some details regarding who the first peoples of the Americas might have been, the broader context is usually the Bering Strait Theory, the idea that Paleoindians walked from Asia over an ancient land bridge approximately 15,000 years ago. Among scientists, this theory appears unshakable, despite the lack of scientific evidence to support it. Indeed, a host of scientific evidence, from linguistics to genetics, does not support the theory.
RELATED: New Discovery Confirms Native American Views on Their Ancestry
RELATED: How Linguists Are Pulling Apart the Bering Strait Theory
As recent scientific discoveries have undercut the Bering Strait Theory, a new hypothesis has emerged, the “Beringian Standstill Theory.” The Standstill hypothesis, which proposes that Paleoindians lived isolated in the land bridge area for almost 20,000 years before migrating to the Americas, is also a controversial conjecture that has questionable scientific merit.
The reason for the insistence by scientists in the primacy of the Bering Strait Theory is not because of science, but because of dogma. This is well known among the scientists, many of whom have chafed under its strictures. So in 1998, Dennis Stanford, director of the Paleoindian program at the Smithsonian Institution, coined the term “Clovis Police” to refer to those “die-hard archaeologists who insist upon Clovis as representing the earliest culture in the New World.” James Adovasio, known for his excavations of the Meadowcroft Rockshelter in Pennsylvania, devoted an entire chapter of his 2002 book, The First Americans: In Pursuit of Archaeology’s Greatest Mystery, to the “Paleo-police” who have frustrated his attempts to gain recognition for the antiquity of the site.
When genetic studies that proposed an ancient contact between Polynesians and American Indians – not in conformity with the Bering Strait Theory – were published by University of Hawaii geneticist Rebecca Cann, they were met with a swift and fierce rebuttal. Cann is a pioneer among geneticists, her research having developed the concept of the “Mitochondrial Eve” and the currently accepted “Out of Africa” theory of modern human origins. She was not someone to be trifled with, and she shot back in a letter in the American Journal of Human Genetics, dismissing much of her critics’ data, interpretations, and point of view; “Rather than make dogmatic statements, we feel that it is better to encourage the open exploration of this debate, with more genetic markers and the use of data already in the literature.”
But open exploration of the debate is not going to happen, because the debate itself is moderated by ideologues, who determine the evidence that may be used, and ignore the evidence that does not fit the theory. In order to understand why this is, one must look at the history of the Bering Strait Theory, which will only shed a little light on the development of science, but offers important lessons on how and why a dogma is created.
The Birth of a Theory
When Columbus stumbled upon the Americas in 1492, he set off an endless round of speculation in Europe regarding the lands and its people. By 1797, Benjamin Smith Barton could write in his book New Views of the Origin of the Tribes and Nations of America that the “opinions of writers concerning the origin, or parental countries, of the Americans are as numerous as the tribes and nations who inhabit this vast portion of the earth.
In those days, the study of science was still a subset of theology so virtually all of the early theories of Indian origins were based on the Bible. Typical of these early scientists was the keen-eyed Jesuit observer Friar Joseph de Acosta, whose book The Natural and Moral History of the Indies (as America was then known), published in 1590, is among the first in the nascent field of anthropology. For Acosta, the evidence was clear.
The reason why we are forced to admit that the men of the Indies came from Europe or Asia is so as not to contradict the sacred Scriptures, which clearly teaches that all men descend from Adam; and thus we cannot assign any other origin for the men of the Indies.
Similarly, the colonization was believed to have taken place only in the past few thousand years. The scientific consensus at that time, held by the foremost chronologists of the Bible, such as Jesuit philosopher Benedict Pereira, Irish archbishop James Ussher, the astronomer Johannes Kepler and the physicist Isaac Newton, was that humans were created around 4,000 BC and the Flood unleashed around 2,400 BC.
Although it would be another 138 years before European explorers would find the Bering Strait, Acosta and many other 16th-century scientists had already assumed that Asia and the Americas were connected. They reasoned that since all of the animals in the world were descended from those saved by Noah from the Flood, the animals that were in the New World had to have walked over by some as yet undiscovered passageway. Acosta argued similarly “that the race of men arrived by traveling little by little until they reached the New World, and the continuity or nearness of the lands helped in this.”
Not everyone agreed with Acosta. The 16th-century Swiss scientist and father of chemistry, Paracelsus, believed the Indigenous Peoples of the Americas were a separate creation of God and not descended from Adam and Eve. His theory, however, met with little support, as there was no evidence of a separate creation in the Bible.
In 1681, Diego Andrés Rocha proposed in his book, A Unique and Singular Treatise on the Origins of the Indians of Peru, Mexico, Santa Fe, and Chile that Indians were the descendants of Noah’s son Japheth and had come to the Americas by way of Atlantis. Since Rocha believed the Spanish were also descended from Japheth, and thus related to Indians, the colonization of the Americas by Spain was to him a fulfillment of divine providence.
Not to be outdone, British writers such as Richard Hakluyt and George Bruder argued that ancient Indians were Welsh and thus justified the British explorations of North America. The Dutch legal philosopher, Hugo Grotius, believed they were northern Europeans who had sailed across the Atlantic, since had they come from Asia they would have surely brought their horses. Many believed Indians were descended from Canaan, the grandson of Noah who was cursed by God, or Ophir, a descendant of Noah’s son Shem who settled in a land rich with gold.
The most enduring origin theory based on the Bible was that Indians were the descendants of the Lost Tribes of Israel, a belief still held today by devout Mormons. It was proposed in 1567 by both French Benedictine scholar Gilbert Genebrard in Chronicle in Two Volumes and Dutch priest Joannes Fredericus Lumnius in his book De Extremo dei Judicio et Indorum Vocatione. As evidence they produced the apocryphal Second Book of Esdras, which tells the story of how the Lost Tribes escaped their Assyrian captors and fled “to a far away country where mankind had never lived,” a region called Arsareth, or in their view, America.
Irish anthropologist James Adair popularized this notion in his book published in 1775, The History of the American Indians, bringing a wealth of (what at that time was considered to be) scientific evidence to back up the Lost Tribes theory. Adair also argued that the early migrants had crossed the Bering Strait.
The Russians, after several dangerous attempts, have clearly convinced the world that [Asia and America] are now divided and have close communication by a narrow strait, in which several islands are situated, through which there is an easy passage from the north-east of Asia to the north-west of America. … By this passage, supposing the main continents were separated, it was very practical for the inhabitants to go to this extensive new world, and afterwards have proceeded in quest of suitable climes.
Although Adair’s ideas about the Lost Tribes would largely fall out of favor, his theory about the Bering Strait would not.
Science Takes Over
On September 6, 1856, a small article appeared in the local newspaper in Elberfeld, Germany.
In the neighboring Neander Valley … a surprising discovery was made in recent days. During the breaking away of limestone cliffs … a cave was uncovered, which over the course of centuries had been filled with clay sediment. Upon digging out this clay, a human rib was found …
The news caught the attention of the distinguished naturalist and professor of anatomy at the University of Bonn, Hermann Schaaffhausen, who at first speculated that the ancient skeleton uncovered was nothing less than an ancestor of American Indians. Upon actual examination of the fossil, what he reported sent shock waves through the Western world.
Neanderthal Man, as he was dubbed, was human, but an entirely different species of human. The concept was not easy to grasp at that time. The idea that there might have existed other forms of humans had rarely been contemplated, much less fit into any existing theory of human origins. Schaaffhausen’s conclusions met with a swift rejection from most other German scientists, who argued that despite the extreme mineralization, the unusual skeleton was not old, he was either a ”poor wretch” who had been deformed by disease, or a Russian Cossack.
But others were ready to accept the possibility that ancient humans existed even if there was no mention of them in the Bible. Geologists, beginning with James Hutton in the 18th-century, had already begun to challenge the notion that the Flood had deposited the many differing layers of soils, rock, and sediments, and argued convincingly that the earth was much, much older than previously thought. In 1837 the Swiss botanist and geologist Louis Agassiz proposed his then extremely controversial theory that the earth had been subject in the ancient past to an ice age.
William Pengelly’s systematic excavations at Brixham Cave in England in 1858, where he found stone tools located alongside extinct ice age animals, was therefore seen as convincing proof of the antiquity of humans. The next year the excavations in the Somme Valley by French archaeologist Jacques Boucher de Crèvecœur de Perthes, who as early as 1847 proposed that men had lived during the ice age, were examined and confirmed, and the findings presented before a stellar assemblage of scientists at London’s prestigious Royal Society, where they were accepted.
With the discoveries of Neanderthal Man, Brixham Cave, and the Somme, antiquarians (as those who studied the human past were then called) were forced to make a choice, and out of that choice a new science, paleoanthropology, was born. The same year that the antiquity of man was confirmed and accepted by the scientists of the Royal Society, Charles Darwin published his famous work, On the Origin of Species, leading to a lasting break with long-held Biblical theories of the natural world.
Paleoanthropology, the study of ancient humans, began as (and still is) a mixture of many sciences and its founding members were composed of academics from practically every discipline: geology, anthropology, biology, archeology, anatomy, and chemistry, to name a few. They were joined by a host of amateurs: businessmen, doctors, bankers, and schoolteachers, who would search for fossils in their spare time.
In Europe dramatic discoveries rapidly followed one after another, and in America the new science was also taking off dramatically–but unfortunately, dramatically on the wrong foot.
RELATED: Bering Strait Theory, Pt. 2: Racism, Eugenics and When Natives Came to America
RELATED: Bering Strait Theory, Pt. 3: The Theory Becomes a Religious Crusade
RELATED: Bering Strait Theory, Pt. 4: The Indisputable Facts in the Artifacts
RELATED: Bering Strait Theory, Pt. 5: The Theory Comes Crashing Down
RELATED: Bering Strait Theory, Pt. 6: DNA, Blood Types and Stereotypes

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Bering Strait Theory, Pt. 2: Racism, Eugenics and When Natives Came to America

Bering Strait Theory, Pt. 2: Racism, Eugenics and When Natives Came to America

Alex Ewen

6/20/14

In Part 1 of our exclusive series we examined how the discovery and examination of the ancient Mexican skeleton, Naia, has led scientists to once again rethink the origins of American Indians.
RELATED: Bering Strait Theory, Pt. 1: How Dogma Trumped Science
Since the early 16th-century, questions about the origins of American Indians spurred a lively theological debate. By the mid-19th-century, science was taking over, but that did not end the debate, indeed, it only made it more contentious than ever.
Skullduggery
On July 18, 1866 the distinguished geologist and scion of a prominent and intellectual Massachusetts family, Josiah Whitney, wrote to his younger brother, the linguist and philologist William Dwight Whitney, of a stunning find at the bottom of a gold mine in Calaveras County, California.
The great excitement now at the office is the discovery of a human skull at a depth 153 feet below a series of volcanic beds with intercalated gravels. I have just returned from the locality, and we have the skull in the office. It is a bony fide find of the greatest interest.
Whitney, a professor at Harvard, was the first “State Geologist” of California. For his scientific achievements, the highest mountain in the continental United States, Mt. Whitney, and a glacier, Whitney Glacier, would be named after him. Whitney examined the skull, which was still partially encrusted in gravel and volcanic ash and covered with a thin sheen of calcium carbonate. Although it was anatomically similar to modern humans, the skull was almost completely fossilized, strong evidence it was probably very old.
The only way to know how old, in those days, was to determine the age of the stratum in which it was buried, but Whitney had not discovered the skull. The skull was apparently found by the mine operator who then gave it to a Wells Fargo agent, who than passed it on to a doctor in San Francisco, who then contacted Whitney. Whitney visited the site, but it was now five months after the discovery and the shaft where it was found had been abandoned and become filled with water. Despite not being able to confirm the exact stratigraphic position of the skull, and therefore its age, Whitney went ahead and announced his preliminary results in a short paper before the California Academy of Sciences.
The news hit the world like a thunderclap. If the skull had indeed been found beneath four separate layers of lava, each layer between 9 and 40 feet thick, that meant that Calaveras Man was, under the reckoning of the day, around 10 million years old.
Whitney’s discovery was met with stunned disbelief from most scientists. Although the antiquity of man had just been recently accepted, 10 million years was a big, big leap. Given the new state of the science many still held an open mind. French anthropologist Jean-François-Albert du Pouget was willing to give Whitney the benefit of the doubt, although he found it odd that the skull was indistinguishable from a modern man; “it is difficult to admit the perpetuation of a type without appreciable modifications during the incalculable ages in which all nature has undergone so complete a transformation.”
But for many scientists, the idea that American Indians could be more ancient than Europeans was impossible. At the same time the theories of evolution for natural organisms were being developed in Europe, culminating in Darwin’s work, theories of social evolution had also been percolating, finding its synthesis in the works of British philosopher Herbert Spencer, who argued that societies increase in complexity over time.
Lewis Henry Morgan, in his influential work Ancient Society, proposed that humans went through various stages of development, beginning with the “Older Period of Savagery” progressing through middle and later periods into the “Older Period of Barbarism,” which also had other stages until finally the “Status of Civilization” was reached.
Thus Canadian geologist Sir John William Dawson could state in his book, Fossil Men, published in 1880, that, “existing humanity, as it appears in the Native American, is little else than the survival of primeval man in Europe.” Dawson led the charge of those scientists who fought against the antiquity of the Calaveras Skull, calling Whitney’s discovery “fanciful and improbable.”
Nor were scientists Whitney’s only detractors; there were those who still held firmly to Biblical ideas of time and creation. “The religious papers,” paleontologist John C. Merriam wrote, “in particular investigated the case and pronounced it a hoax originating with some mischievous miners.” The stories that Whitney was the victim of a practical joke spread, becoming more and more elaborate with each telling, with more and more participants claiming to have been in on it, and making the new science a source of popular ridicule. To make matters worse, Whitney took his time defending his discovery, writing a detailed report about the skull only in 1879, a full 13 years later, which allowed the controversy to fester and grow.
With the release of his report, dissenting scientists were finally able to take a crack at dismantling Whitney’s discovery and the attacks were swift and withering. The geologist William Phipps Blake, who visited the site, argued that the calcareous sheen on the skull was not typical of a fossil washed into a gravel bed, and the skull should have been more damaged and abraded. Alphonse Pinart, a champion of the Bering Strait Theory who had actually kayaked through it, contended that the site was not pristine and so there was no way of knowing where the skull came from, all of which created “the most serious doubts regarding the antiquity of this specimen.”
Whitney replied that it didn’t really matter where the skull had been found, the gravels found encrusted with it were clearly of an ancient epoch, an argument dismissed by the prominent archaeologist William Henry Holmes, who countered that the Indians could have simply buried the person in those ancient deposits. A host of distinguished scientists rose to defend Whitney. Many, such as the paleontologist William Healey Dall and geologist George Ferdinand Becker, actually examined the skull. But the lack of proof that it had come from such a deep location made it difficult to defend its great age, and there were strong grounds to believe that even if Whitney was not the victim of some prank, the skull did not come from the bottom of the mine shaft.
With Whitney’s death in 1896 the gloves came off and the Calaveras skull was systematically debunked and pronounced a hoax. Unfortunately it would be another 70 years before the skull could be dated independently of the stratum it might have come from. Because it was almost completely fossilized, the skull could not be radiocarbon dated, but a fluorine test conducted by the archaeologist Kenneth Oakley of the British Museum (Natural History) found it to be approximately 5,000 years old, ancient yes, but by no means 10 million years old.
The Paleolithic War
The highly publicized battle over the Calaveras skull was just the opening salvo of a rancorous war among American paleoanthropologists that raged across the hemisphere over the next half-century. The battle lines became drawn between those who believed, or were willing to accept, that Indians in America were ancient, that is present in this hemisphere at least 10,000 years ago or even 100,000 years ago (the Paleolithic era), and those who insisted that Indians had migrated here only within the past 5,000 years.
As Anthony T. Boldurian and John L. Cotter observed in their history of the early excavations in the Southwest, Clovis Revisited, the conflict was due “in part to heated arguments over what exactly constituted acceptable evidence.” The new science was still working out its methodology for determining how old artifacts might be. But a larger problem was that, “a few of anthropology’s influential elite seemed firmly opposed to an American Paleolithic.”
Thus any archaeological site that might betray a hint of antiquity became a bloody battleground fought between competing camps of scientists. From the suburbs in New Jersey to beaches in Florida, the wilderness of Canada to the Mississippi Delta, from the Pampas of Argentina to the valleys of Mexico, the war raged without mercy. To make things worse, amateurs and dilettantes scoured the land looking for fossils, often making outlandish claims. Among the professionals there were dozens of theories as to how old Indians were and where they came from, with some even proposing an American genesis.
In Europe, spectacular finds piled up one after another: the discovery of Cro-Magnon man in southern France in 1868; the cave art of Altamira, Spain, discovered in 1879; the discovery of extensive Neanderthal tools in 1880. But in America, paleoanthropology was completely paralyzed by the infighting. By 1900, the new science did not have a single discovery that had any consensus among its members.
Paleoanthropology needed a leader, someone who could end the chaos and put it on the path to respectability. It found it in a most unlikely person, a Czech-born anthropologist by the name of Aleš Hrdlička. His impact on American paleoanthropology in the coming century would be difficult to overstate.
The Rise of an Orthodoxy
Although only 34 years old in 1903, Hrdlička was chosen to head the new physical anthropology department at the National Museum (now the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History) in Washington D.C. Physical anthropology, the biological study of humans, was at that time largely concerned with “racial classification,” often through the study of human skulls, and Hrdlička was by then one of its leading experts. Over the previous four years, Hrdlička had toured the Americas examining people and collecting skulls for the American Museum of Natural History and his skills had brought him to the attention of the curator of anthropology at the National Museum, William Henry Holmes.
Holmes, one of the most prominent critics of the Calaveras skull, was a veteran in the war among paleoanthropologists and the leading debunker of ancient archaeological finds. In Hrdlička, Holmes found a person who was an even more strident advocate of the modernity of American Indians and an unswerving devotee of the Bering Strait Theory, believing that Indians had originated in Central Europe and then reached the Americas no earlier than 3,000 BC. As the anthropologist Adolph H. Schultz wrote in 1944 in his memorial to Hrdlička,
In regard to his own conclusions, Hrdlička seems to have been rarely plagued by doubts … Thus, once having become convinced that man’s arrival in America was of comparatively recent date, he steadfastly clung to and passionately fought for this conclusion to the end of his life, even in view of evidence demanding a reconsideration of the problem of the antiquity of man in the New World.
These views were by no means a consensus among scientists then. Even conservatives like Sir John William Dawson, who was among the first to challenge the Calaveras skull and who believed that American Indians were relatively recent migrants, also believed that they had migrated through multiple routes, from Asia, the North Atlantic, and the islands of Polynesia. A host of others, like Frederic Ward Putnam, curator of the American Museum of Natural History in New York and considered the “father of American archaeology,” were firmly convinced that Indians were here in the Paleolithic, at least 10,000 years ago or more.
Hrdlička subscribed to the pseudo-scientific “eugenics” theories that were in vogue at the time. Eugenics, essentially scientific racism, was based on the work of Darwin’s cousin, Francis Galton, who had proposed that the perceived superiority of the white race was due to a superior genetic makeup, a theory highly controversial even then. Hrdlička worked with and was influenced by America’s leading eugenicist, Charles B. Davenport, and he received funding to conduct research and launch his magazine, The American Journal of Physical Anthropology, from Madison Grant, author of one of the most infamous works of scientific racism, The Passing of the Great Race.
Hrdlička’s theory of the Bering Strait migration was identical to that of James Adair, who had proposed it more than a century before, except for the Lost Tribes part. They were both based not on scientific evidence, but on a presumption born in religion that then migrated to science–the antiquity and preeminence of Western culture over all others.
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Read more at https://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com/2014/06/20/bering-strait-theory-pt-2-racism-eugenics-and-when-natives-came-america-155406?nopaging=1