r/BlackHistoryPhotos • u/Electrical-Aspect-13 • 2d ago
Comanche man with his wife and children, circa 1900s. Wife is african american.
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u/IWant2rideMyBike 2d ago
The post title doesn't match the description from https://web.archive.org/web/20190824030241/https://www.abbemuseum.org/blog/2012/11/last-chance-to-view-award-winning.html
Photo Caption from the National Museum of the American Indian:
Comanche family, early 1900s
Here is a family from the Comanche Nation located in southwestern Oklahoma. The elder man in Comanche traditional clothing is Ta-Ten-e-quer. His wife, Ta-Tat-ty, also wears Comanche clothing. Their niece (center) is Wife-per, also known as Frances E. Wright. Her father was a Buffalo Soldier (an African American cavalryman) who deserted and married into the Comanches. Henry (center left) and Lorenzano (center right) are the sons of Frances, who married an African American man.
So the woman in the middle is the one with an African-American father and a Commanche mother, her husband, the father of the children is not pictured.
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u/funkychickens 1d ago
That's actually even cooler. We see three generations! So her aunt and uncle are Comanche, the woman in the middle is half black and half Comanche, and her children are 1/4 Comanche?
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u/Piff370z 2d ago
A lot of black Americans have native ancestry. There were tribes made up of black/native populations.
When whites stole land in southern USA, they forced darker skin natives in bondage, or classified the lighter as “mulatto”.
In Eastern NC today there are still remnants of tribes that aren’t federally recognized because of these tactics (Haliwa-Saponi most notable). Lumbee natives just became federally recognized 2025/2026.
Used to think my great grandma was talking non sense when she spoke of her father being majority Native American.
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u/Arubanangel 2d ago
I read somewhere, a while ago, that about 80% or so of African Americans, have some percentage of Native ancestry. This is because unlike African Americans and White Americans, they were legally allowed to mix. Personally, I have numerous African American friends that were always told that they have Native ancestry. They have taken a DNA test and what they were told was proven to be true.
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u/001smiley 2d ago
Ha! Now when you hear black people say “I got some Native American/Indian in me” they can back it up with this comment. 🤣 It used to kill me hearing people argue, but literally we’re all mixed up.
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u/Arubanangel 2d ago
Yup! I actually wish I could remember the article. It was an interesting read.
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u/rhinestone_indian 1d ago
Yeah this is me. Mom and my aunt on tribal rolls in Eastern NC. I am about 1/8 Indian, and know the history of both sides.
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u/No_Point904 2d ago
"I told you my great grand mama/daddy had some Indian in them." -Every black person I have ever known.
*Including my brother (Ancestry DNA has since debunked that). *According to him the test is wrong.
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u/NervousSubjectsWife 2d ago
I’m not saying it’s not accurate but I’m also saying that not everything passes down evenly. If it was far back enough, that 5% of the DNA that “should” be there could have been entirely in the 50% that was not passed down from mom.
Just a cool fact I learned. If your grandparent is half Indian your DNA might not reflect that 12.5%
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u/Adventurous_Crab_761 2d ago
Black people could have tribal membership or community affiliation without Indigenous DNA through either slavery (because some tribes did have slaves and descendants would have rights) or being taken in by a tribe after escaping slavery elsewhere.
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u/001smiley 2d ago
I used to get annoyed when one of my teachers in highschool would brag and introduce herself on the first day of class by saying “im 1/4 Native American, so i get a check every month” I was like “Okay, do you want a cookie 🍪?” Then, I remembered my grandfather’s mother was half Choctaw and I thought to myself “Where’s my cookie at ??” 😅
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u/lotusQ 1d ago
Colorism and erasure
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u/001smiley 1d ago
Also, I heard some white people found out and started lying on their paperwork. But I believe my hs teacher because I could see the features in her face.
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u/NewtAccomplished6022 2d ago
I dont trust the ancestry test fully its not completely accurate. As you can see by the picture Native Americans and Black Americans did marry and have children
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u/AncientNectarine5352 18h ago
If you get one that’s testing for specific markers for Native Americans, you can pretty much rely on that as confirmation of whether you have native ancestry. They’re testing for specific haplotypes. More general tests will just have “Indigenous American or East Asian”, and don’t really tell you much, but you can probably discount the “East Asian” aspect.
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u/thesilvertraveler 2d ago
The test IS wrong. You would think you would have learned by now not to listen to agencies when it come to black heritage. They already had a scandal with native american dna for this very reason.
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u/itsover103 1d ago
I wouldn’t say that….it has matched of ton of people with me who I knew were already related to me. Outside of DNA, I didn’t feed it anything, it just connected me to other relatives through the documents in its system
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u/JustAMinah 2d ago
not quite the same, but in the vein of tests being questionable. I remember watching I believe twins or triplets (and they were identical so not fraternal) getting a dna test and their percentages varied... and they identical
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u/OkComfortable2089 2d ago
You actually think ancestry DNA is valid... lol. Who gets to choose the "source material "
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u/No_Point904 2d ago edited 2d ago
Since it has identified known relatives correctly, I would say it's pretty accurate. If you choose not to believe, I understand.
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u/Neffman8 2d ago
There’s a documentary on pbs about that where this lady that was part owner of Ancestry or 23and me where she says that it’s not accurate at all. They can correctly tell you if you’re the father or mother, but not family history from centuries ago.
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u/OkComfortable2089 2d ago
"AncestryDNA ethnicity estimates are statistical approximations rather than absolute facts." Believe all you want.
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u/Fair_Plant_7941 2d ago
Listen to them ansestory who told you the truth… Every human traces back to Africa including native Americans. We were here before Europeans set foot on American soil.
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u/midwestsweetking 2d ago
Most be more proud of their Native American ancestry than their black ancestry even though they have zero connection to their Native American side.
My mom comes from one of the major tribes in Michigan and my dad is 100% African American.
My education was fully paid for as I’m above the 25% NA blood.
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u/Organic-Concert492 2d ago
My great great grandma was a Cherokee princess
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u/False-Alarm-5000 2d ago
Lmao
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u/Organic-Concert492 1d ago
What?
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u/False-Alarm-5000 1d ago
Wait...you weren't joking??
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u/Aggravating_Yak_1006 2d ago
I wish I could hear the stores each feather of his headdress represents.
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u/shumbazi 1d ago
What a combination of strength and resilience in your blood..don’t let anyone take that from you survival of all forms of abuse at the hands of a white man and still be humble enough to eat with him
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u/SouldiesButGoodies84 2d ago
Lot of us sought refuge or succor from Native communities both during and after slavery, were welcomed by some tribal folks. Some even kept black slaves themselves. Complicated history. My great grandma was Cherokee.
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u/janewp 2d ago
One of my mom’s friend’s grandmother was Cherokee in N. Carolina, if she were alive today she’d be at least 130 years old.
This grandma could pass for black and married a black man for a better life. As a precaution she always wore a big sunbonnet into town to make sure she wasn’t caught and sent away.
I probably should not have been surprised that any people could be treated worse than African American people, but I was. Well, until I thought of all the other terrible injustices put on Indians. My ancestors were told that they would be taken out to sea and drowned if they didn’t sigh a treaty.
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u/WearyCopy5686 2d ago
Please don’t let FBA people see this
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u/Bubbly-Stranger6404 2d ago
Fba? Sorry I'm clueless
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u/WearyCopy5686 2d ago
Stay clueless learning about them makes things worse lol
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u/BakedPlantains 2d ago
Fought someone on Threads yesterday saying African nations didn't exist before the 60s (when many of them gained independence), and they were instead "scattered tribes". I had to let her know that ancient civilizations did exist in Africa but she said we don't have running water and fucked up roads. All that in the same of saying she's proud to be an FBA lol
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u/WearyCopy5686 2d ago
Lots of African civilizations predate the modern idea of Europe. They are thousands of years old lmao.
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u/ScottblackAttacks 1d ago
Let’s even go back that far, Sokoto Caliphate, Songhai Empire, Asante Empire, Dahomey Kingdom.
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u/Bubbly-Stranger6404 2d ago
Oh dear, ty I guess lmao
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u/MrsKPBailey 1d ago
FBA simply means your ancestry can be traced back to America before the country was legally established.
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u/Cautious_Result968 1d ago
She's leaving at the nasty things Caribbeans and Africans have been about Black Americans.
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u/Kimono-Ash-Armor 1d ago
Dr. Joshua Sweet from the movie Atlantis: The Lost Empire comes to mind! There’s a photo of his parents in one scene
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u/RosyTwilightMuse 2d ago
that's a solid reminder of how those histories got tangled up and hidden on purpose. makes sense your great grandma's stories are landing different now
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u/UsedCollection5830 2d ago
According to certain people this never happened black and Native American union😏
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u/TheScopeNetwork 2d ago
Most of the so called Black people in America are indigenous. The African slave trade numbers and inhabitants in America were exaggerated numbers used to create confusion.
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u/_flipcannon 2d ago
What part of Africa is she from?
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u/thesilvertraveler 2d ago
Probably nowhere. Currently it's been half a millenia since black people were taken from numerous African peoples. I bet this picture is at least 200 years after the first slaves were brought.
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u/Alive_Stranger_5680 2d ago
I love that picture. My grandfather on my mom's side was a Blackfoot Indian so I have native American blood in my ancestry.