| Total population | |
|---|---|
| 1950 (census) | 60[1] |
| 1956 (est.) | 40[2][3] |
| Regions with significant populations | |
| Holmes County, Florida, eastern United States | |
| Languages | |
| English | |
| Religion | |
| Baptist,Holiness movement[4] | |
| Related ethnic groups | |
| Brass Ankles,African-Americans,Free Blacks,Melungeons,Carmelites,Lumbee,Beaver Creek Indians,Wesorts,Chestnut Ridge people,Redbones,Alabama Cajans | |
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TheDominickers are a small biracial ortriracial ethnic group that was once centered in theFlorida Panhandle county ofHolmes, in a corner of the southern part of the county west of theChoctawhatchee River, near the town ofPonce de Leon. The group was classified in 1950 as one of the "reputed Indian-White-Negro racial isolates of the Eastern United States" by theUnited States Census Bureau, under the classification of white.[1]
Few facts are known about their origins, and little has been published about this group.
The first known mention in print of the Dominickers is an article inFlorida: A Guide to the Southernmost State, published by theFederal Writers' Project in 1939. The article "Ponce de Leon" identifies the Dominickers as beingmixed-race descendants of the widow of a pre-Civil War plantation owner and one of her black slaves, by whom she had five children. (A separate oral tradition has it that the slave was the mixed-race ormulatto half-brother of the woman's deceased husband, but this has not been verified. In that account the half-brother's mother had been enslaved.)[5]
The unsigned article said that numerous descendants still lived in the area at the time of writing. Their children were required to attend asegregated school (as required by Florida'sJim Crow laws). Dominickers were not accepted as social equals by the white community, but they kept themselves apart from the main black community. The Dominickers formed a small middle layer of Holmes County society separate from both whites and blacks (somewhat analogous to the status offree people of color, theLouisiana Creoles before the United States purchase of the Louisiana Territory).[5]
According to the article, the appearance of Dominickers varied from very fair (white) to "Negroid" (black), even among the siblings of a single family. The nickname "Dominickers", taken aspejorative, was said to come from a local man in a divorce case describing his estranged wife as "black and white, like an oldDominicker chicken." Another account says the description was applied, instead, to the man with whom she was living after she left her husband.[5]
Two unpublished typescripts[5] prepared for theFWP Florida guidebook, but not included in it, are archived at theUniversity of Florida library inGainesville. They were likely sources or drafts of the published article.[citation needed]
These typescripts go into further detail than the published article on the appearance and behavior of the Dominickers, saying that the local people described them as "sensitive, treacherous, and vindictive" and "pathetically ignorant." The men are described as "big and burly looking", and the women were described as "low in stature, fat, and shapeless," wearing loose clothing.[5]
One article notes that Dominickers were "treated with the same courtesy that a Negro receives—never served at a public fountain nor introduced to a white person." A few Dominicker children were allowed to attend the white high school inWestville, but they were "never allowed to actually graduate."[5]
In contrast to these descriptions, photographs of known Dominickers from the late 19th and early 20th centuries show that their appearance ranged from fair-complected to swarthy, but not "Negroid," as claimed;[citation needed] the women, especially, seem to have had an olive-skinned, wavy-haired "Mediterranean" look.[citation needed] A later academic writer, a native of the area, states, "Most of these people are Spanish or Cuban in appearance." but that "the fairest daughter may have a brother distinctly Negroid in appearance."[6]
The typescripts give five different accounts of the Dominickers' origins, which are said[by whom?] to includeEuchee Indian ancestors. There may have originally been several distinct mixed-race families in the area, with various combinations of white, black, and Indian ancestry, whose descendants intermarried. Eventually they were all considered Dominickers. One typescript says, "they are about three-fourthswhite and one-eighthNegro and one-eighthIndian."[5]
For example, one account pieced from various sources says that in the early nineteenth century, Jim Crow (no connection with the later segregation laws called by that name), an "Indian prince" and son of ChiefSam Story of the localEuchee Indians, married Harriet, a beautiful, "more than two-thirds white" enslaved house servant owned by a local white family.[7][permanent dead link] The interracial couple had a daughter, Eliza. When the Euchee migrated to southern Florida in 1832, shortly after Sam Story's death, Harriet (who may have been her owner's daughter) and the baby stayed behind with the white family. When Eliza grew up, she married a "yellow boy" (mixed-race with high proportion of white, such as quadroon or octoroon) named Jim Harris, son of a slave belonging to another white family.[7][permanent dead link] Their daughter, Lovey, eventually married another "yellow boy" and had a large family of good-looking children, who "married into another half-breed family."[7][permanent dead link] It is also said[by whom?] that other Euchee besides Jim Crow left many descendants (presumably mixed-race) in the area.[5]
Many families in the Holmes County area claim Native American descent, especially from theCreek Indians, a larger nation of the Southeast with whom theEuchee were once affiliated. The local Choctawhatchee Creek have organized and said to be seeking state recognition.[8][better source needed]
Federal censuses ofHolmes and the adjacent counties ofWalton andWashington dating to 1850 list many Dominicker families and individuals. They are variously identified aswhite,mulatto, andblack (sometimes even among members of the same family, with parents given different classifications). Classifications for a given individual often changed from one census to the next, as they were dependent on the opinion of the census enumerator. The census records show that in the decades following theCivil War, many Dominickers married white spouses, and their children had increasingly even more white ancestry. In 1930 the Southern block in Congress had the census changed to reflect their binary system andone-drop rule: every individual was classified only as either black or white, hiding the large number of mixed-race individuals in the South.[citation needed]
The 1950 federal census instructed enumerators to make note of local populations of mixed white, black, and Indian ancestry in the eastern United States. InHolmes County,Florida, and nowhere else, 60 Dominickers were so counted, although they were designated as white on the census.[citation needed]
In 1956, aUnited States Public Health Service worker, who had tabulated the 1950 census findings, made a brief visit to the area. He interviewed some white residents but was unable to make contact with any Dominickers, said to number about 40 at that time. His field notes indicate that at least one Dominicker was known to claim being of Spanish and Indian descent. He also noted that "the term Dominicker is not acceptable to the group and is not used in their presence."[5]
At some point in the 1960s, following the US Supreme Court decision inBrown v Board of Education ruling that segregated schools were unconstitutional, the school system closed the black school in Ponce de Leon. Students of color were integrated into the other local public schools. Some descendants of the Dominicker group still live in the area, but since World War II, many have scattered to other parts of the country. Those remaining inHolmes County and nearby localities have quietly assimilated into the white community. There is no organized affiliation of Dominicker descendants.[citation needed]
The Dominickers were Baptists, and attended a one-room school at Mt. Zion Baptist Church, at which they also attendedHoliness Revival sermons.[4][a] The only recorded Dominicker graveyard is beside the church, which was documented to have dirt mounds upon each grave. On each mound would be multiples of an item, such as shells, glassware, bottles, toys, or lightbulbs, in a similar fashion to African-American graves in the region.[3][9] TheGullah, and the nearbyAlabama Cajans were recorded to have similarburial practices.[10][11]
Dominicker women were noted to dress in loose garments, and sometimes not wear footwear, and the men were noted for training horses and the fermentation of moonshine.[2][4] Several of these cultural traits are shared in common with theRedbones of southwestern Louisiana.[12][b]
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The Dominickers are sometimes given a brief mention in sources[13] discussingMelungeon people, or othertri-racial isolate groups. There is, however, no known link between the Dominickers and any other mixed-race group.[citation needed]
According to an account on Rootsweb, about 1857 more than 100 mixed-race families were said to migrate by wagon train from Holmes County toRapides andVernon parishes in Louisiana, where they became part of the mixed-race people known asRedbones.[14][better source needed] TheRedbones have been known as a group in southwestern Louisiana, and their origins are still debated. There have been marriages between members of that group and relatives of the Holmes County Dominickers, but there is no evidence to suggest a common origin for the two groups.[citation needed]
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