Do you think that some African-Americans could be called Native Americans?

Question

Most if not all of the African-Americans that were forcibly re-located to the Americas lost their heritage. Any genealogical research a young African-American could do into their family history would get as far as when their forefathers were slaves and have to stop there.
At this point in our history that would be many generations going back over a hundred years, but there it would hit a dead end.

How many generations of living in a country are required to be considered a “native”?

In other nations “lost in antiquity” is as good as native is it not? Except for royalty, after a couple of hundred years, most family trees are either lost or are fictionalized anyway.

Answer 1

Some African Americans did in fact marry into Indian American tribes or were fully adopted into the tribes as family. Some of us even know that our foreparents came from the Timbuktu region of Africa..We are Choctaws and Chickasaws that are mixed bloods, some of us are of Irish/English decent too. ...Anything else? DNA testing proves authenticity. Most African Americans have been here since pre-colonial times as Free Men and Women...

Whoopie Goldberg found hers in Guinea this week, but since she does not fly will probably never get to know her distant realtives! We did not need to do a geneaological search to find each other...Most are recorded in family Bibles and other such things and church records....they were only a phone call away for us!

Never the less it absolutely astounds me that white people can attempt to make the same claim. General George Armstrong Custer's reatives still live in the western regions of the country, as Do Brigham Young who enslaved thousands of Native and African Americans... some even employed the use of Identity theft through doing those genealogies and kept it for themselves, to take what rightfully belonged to them.

Answer 2

Okay class, close your books and pay attention.
Yes some African-Americans can be called Native Americans. Shocking? Here's more. Some people of any race can be called Native American. Why? Because to the United States government all you have to be is 1/4 Native Blood and prove it.
I'll make it easy to understand. A child that has a father or mother that is Full Blood, recognized by the U.S. government, and a father or mother of any other race, is at least 1/2 Native American blood. Which to the U.S. government means that they are in fact Native American.
Now here is question to ponder.
Did you know that up until recently in Louisianna if 6 generations back you had a African American ancestor, that's great grand parent x5, making you 1/64, you were considered African American, or as it said in the law Black?

Answer 3

Native American does not refer to someone who has been here a long time. It is a culture of people, an ethnic group. Because you have lived in America a long time does not give you tribal blood, does not make you part of that culture. The term Native American was not created by tribal peoples so do not disrespect their culture by using it improperly. You know very well what Native American means.
And by the way, many African-American people do have Native blood because they share similiar histories.

Answer 4

You have presented a good argument for your question. I agree that Americans of African decent, may have lost their African identity.

BUT: The usurping of the term NATIVE AMERICAN is wrong in every manor thinking. It is an insult to the people currently termed Native American and an insult to those that would be renamed Native American.

"American of African Decent", may be a better term.

Answer 5

Native Americans are the ones that descend from People and cultures of American Indians. The african americans will never have that so they will never be.

Answer 6

No. Native Americans are Indians.

Answer 7

No, native Americans are the people who were robbed of their land when the white people came over from other countries.

Answer 8

no because the native americans are native to this country. african americans are native to africa. any amount of gernerations is native. a person could have many native countries. its simply the places where you culture originated.

Answer 9

No No No No No

African Amercians can trace back there bloodlines to Africa if they want. Oprah and Whoopi Goldberg have done it. ($$)

There are no native north americans, they all came from somewhere else (Asia?) just like your ancestors and mine.

Answer 10

all born in this country can be native americans. many black persons, sadly, do not want to consider themselves americans. they need to.