The epigraph above opens the introduction to the 1926 study, Mongrel Virginians: The WIN Tribe. Sponsored by the Eugenics Record Office (ERO) and the Carnegie Foundation, Mongrel Virginians investigated the moral and social character of the Amherst County Indians. Arthur Estabrook, alongside co-author and sociologist Ivan McDougle, used family pedigrees and sociological investigation to determine the genetic and moral make-up of the group they called the “WIN” tribe, a pseudonym meant to signify their “White-Indian-Negro” ancestry. Violating both legal and social restrictions against interracial mixing, the group—as the researchers saw it—embodied the moral and social degeneracy bred by miscegenation. For those Virginians committed to white
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Virginian Indians reclassified under the RIA were not only subjected to segregation in public spaces, their racial reclassification threatened familial relationships, as many groups had a long history of marriage with both their white and black neighbors. Despite the harm done by the RIA, Virginia Indians were not passive victims of the Anglo-Saxon Clubs’ racial purity campaign, nor were they passive subjects of scientific scrutiny. On both fronts Virginia Indians took proactive measures to enshrine their self-identity against the accusations lodged against them. With the support of a different set of researchers, anthropologists James Mooney and Frank Speck, many of Virginia’s Indian groups pursued incorporation as a tribal community in order to preserve their “third” race status in the bi-racial state. Though Speck and Mooney viewed the Virginia Indians as a tri-racially mixed people, they did not subscribe to the orthodoxy of the one-drop rule. More interested in the groups’ ability to maintain a distinct culture and identity apart from both black and whites, Mooney and Speck viewed these communities as distinct native …show more content…
I argue that the Anglo-Saxon Clubs leveraged the scientific authority of eugenics to endow their pronouncements—which may have otherwise been dismissed as racist propaganda—with legitimacy and objectivity. I contend that despite their best efforts to establish a new racial system, the ASCOA exposed the fissures of Jim Crow, namely the difficulty in drawing a permanent and distinguishable color line. Indeed, instead of excising racial categories, the members of the Anglo-Saxon Clubs helped to engender new ones, such as “near-whites,” and “negroid Indians.” Despite the fact that these were problem populations that were legal impossibilities according to Virginia law, Plecker and his associates—by drawing attention to these groups for the purposes of enforcing the RIA—actually helped to imbue these categories with racial meaning. As the state’s “negroid Indians” came under increased racial scrutiny, they responded by utilizing their own network of scientists and supporters who rejected the mono-racial thinking of Plecker and his associates. As a result, by 1930, when the Virginia legislature considered its final amendment to the Racial Integrity Act, the ASCOA’s goal of enforcing racial reclassification on the state’s Indians remained far from realized. In establishing their own schools and churches, and also through maintaining ties
Virginian Indians reclassified under the RIA were not only subjected to segregation in public spaces, their racial reclassification threatened familial relationships, as many groups had a long history of marriage with both their white and black neighbors. Despite the harm done by the RIA, Virginia Indians were not passive victims of the Anglo-Saxon Clubs’ racial purity campaign, nor were they passive subjects of scientific scrutiny. On both fronts Virginia Indians took proactive measures to enshrine their self-identity against the accusations lodged against them. With the support of a different set of researchers, anthropologists James Mooney and Frank Speck, many of Virginia’s Indian groups pursued incorporation as a tribal community in order to preserve their “third” race status in the bi-racial state. Though Speck and Mooney viewed the Virginia Indians as a tri-racially mixed people, they did not subscribe to the orthodoxy of the one-drop rule. More interested in the groups’ ability to maintain a distinct culture and identity apart from both black and whites, Mooney and Speck viewed these communities as distinct native …show more content…
I argue that the Anglo-Saxon Clubs leveraged the scientific authority of eugenics to endow their pronouncements—which may have otherwise been dismissed as racist propaganda—with legitimacy and objectivity. I contend that despite their best efforts to establish a new racial system, the ASCOA exposed the fissures of Jim Crow, namely the difficulty in drawing a permanent and distinguishable color line. Indeed, instead of excising racial categories, the members of the Anglo-Saxon Clubs helped to engender new ones, such as “near-whites,” and “negroid Indians.” Despite the fact that these were problem populations that were legal impossibilities according to Virginia law, Plecker and his associates—by drawing attention to these groups for the purposes of enforcing the RIA—actually helped to imbue these categories with racial meaning. As the state’s “negroid Indians” came under increased racial scrutiny, they responded by utilizing their own network of scientists and supporters who rejected the mono-racial thinking of Plecker and his associates. As a result, by 1930, when the Virginia legislature considered its final amendment to the Racial Integrity Act, the ASCOA’s goal of enforcing racial reclassification on the state’s Indians remained far from realized. In establishing their own schools and churches, and also through maintaining ties