Black Dutch?

Question

My grandmother said her mother was black dutch. What is this exactly?

Answer 1

As Wendy C. says, there is no exact meaning for the label "Black Dutch", or rather there are at least eight possible meanings:
1) Melungeons, originating along the Virginia and North Carolina border--an amalgamation of remnants of Native American groups along with African and Northern European peoples.
2) Ramapo Mountain People, originally from the New Jersey-New York border area--free Mulattos from Dutch farms in the Hudson River Valley.
3) Schwarze Deutsche from the Danube River Valley in Austria and Germany--the Roman army for the region along the Danube was drawn from Garmante (or Tubu) soldiers from the Central African Sahara. Beethoven and Hitler are two examples of this non-Aryan lineage.
4) Tyiganes, or "Gypsies"
5) Dutch and Belgian Jews, for example, Baruch Spinoza
6) Mulattos and other mixed children of German, Dutch, and Flemish fathers.
7) Native-American/ German-Americans
8) Those who mark number 310 in the "Some Other Race" US Census category.

Answer 2

Dutch colonial holdings formerly included portions of the present Ghana, Togo, Benin, Nigeria, the Congo, Togo, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Liberia and Equatorial Guinea, so the offspring of Dutch intermarriage with Africans, or Africans culturally affected by the Dutch, might call themselves "Black Dutch," in the same way many Africans, South Asians and others consider themselves connected to Britain, France and other former colonial empires. The other explanations seem good, very much like "Black Irish," and mine may be applicable if "Black" is a more pronounced thing.

Answer 3

My grandfather set me down when I was a young teenager and told me our family was Black Dutch. He has so much pride when he said it but at the time I wasn't that interrested and didn't find out anything about it. I wish now that I had listened more closely. I am very interrested in finding out more about it. I know that there are many theories about where the Black Dutch came from. But the way my grandfather told me, it was told with pride not something to hide. My family all are light skin, blue and green eyes with light to medium, straight hair. I know I have Irish in me too. So I am kind of going with the theory of the Black Irish invading Dutch country to take their land and durning the war births where the Black Irish and the Dutch were involved. This is one theory that I believe to be the most likely.

Answer 4

This is what I found for you.
Definitions of black dutch

Sephardie Jews who married Dutch protestants to escape the Inquisition, many of their descendants later moving to the Americas, the "black" referring to their dark hair and complexion; Descendents of marriages between Dutch women Portuguese soldiers stationed in the Netherlands as part of Spanish forces in the Spanish-Dutch wars 1555-1609. See also Melungeons. Perhaps rarely, German immigrants c.1740 from the Black Forest region, Early 19th C. ... hope this helps

Answer 5

According to researcher James Pylant, based on his extensive survey of American families claiming Black Dutch as part of their heritage:

"There are strong indications that the original "Black Dutch" were swarthy complexioned Germans. Anglo-Americans loosely applied the term to any dark-complexioned American of European descent. The term was adopted as an attempt to disguise Indian or infrequently, tri-racial descent. By the mid-1800s the term had become an American colloquialism; a derogative term for anything denoting one's small stature, dark coloring, working-class status, political sentiments, or anyone of foreign extraction."
He also writes:

"In contrast to the Anglo-surnamed Melungeons, nearly 60% of American families reporting Black Dutch tradition bear surnames that are either decidedly German or possibly Americanized from Germanic origin." (Pylant, 1997)
German Gypsies, Roma People, are also known as Black Dutch, and there is some overlap in surnames between present-day Gypsies and the American families with a "Black Dutch" tradition.

Answer 6

The Netherlands were once a part of Spain, hence the "black".
Many Dutch people have some Spanish ancestry, like my niece Jessica, who is Spanish-looking and drop dead gorgeous. Two of my nephews, who are very handsome men, tall and blonde, have a Spanish last name which came from that era.

Answer 7

There is no *exactly* for this term.
Because no one agrees on the specifics (notice the variety of definitions above).
I have seen people use it to refer to dark persons of mixed or unknown heritage... some claim Cherokee, some claim actual Dutch, maybe German, maybe Melungeon (disputed in itself). We are coming back today to explain an old old terminology that has been passed down in many families, and which had DIFFERENT origins for different families. I think in most cases, it tended to be a catch all assumption for possibly mysterious ancestors, who if we researched them accurately today, could wind up actually being something completely different.
It would be a real challenge, for you to find the facts related to gr grandma, and compare what you learn about her and her actual ancestry.

Answer 8

Uhhh none? I will say though, darker types are definitely more common among the Irish than among the Dutch or Germans. I've actually seen quite a few Irish people who could pass for Spanish or Italian.

Answer 9

Dark hair and eyes as opposed to Blonde and blue.