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Brass Ankles

Regions with significant populations
Holly Hill, South Carolina, easternUnited States
Languages
English
Religion
PredominantlyBaptist
Related ethnic groups
Melungeon,Lumbee,Beaver Creek Indians,Alabama Cajans,Redbones of Louisiana and Texas

TheBrass Ankles ofSouth Carolina, sometimes referred to asCroatan, lived in the swamp areas ofGoose Creek, South Carolina andHolly Hill, South Carolina (Crane Pond). Many of them are direct descendants of Robert Sweat and Margarate Cornish.^{[citation needed]} Margaret Cornish was documented to be a Black woman living inSurry County, Virginia in 1610, who had a "mulatto" child with Robert Sweat according to records.^[1][2] She had previously had a child withJohn Graweere, one of theFirst Africans in Virginia, who neglected to buy her freedom because she had become in love with Sweat.^[2]

Although Brass Ankles were of mixed ancestry and free before theAmerican Civil War, afterReconstruction,whiteDemocrats regained power inthe South and imposedracial segregation andwhite supremacy underJim Crow laws. United States Census surveys included a category of "mulatto" until 1930 when the powerful Southern bloc in Congress pushed through requirements to have people classified only as black or white. By that time, most Southern states had passed laws under which persons of any known black ancestry were required to be classified in state records as black, under what is known as the "one-drop rule" ofhypodescent.^{[citation needed]}

The binary classifications required individuals to be classified as white or black, even if they had long been recorded and identified as "Indian" (Native American) or mixed race. However, most self-identified asCroatan according to death certificates.^{[citation needed]}

The surnames repeatedly represented among the Brass Ankles according to the 1910 Holly Hill, SC Census records have included:Bryant,Weatherford,Platt,Pye,Jackson,Chavis,Bunch,Driggers, Sweat (Swett),Williams,Russell,Scott,Wilder, andGoins. Some of these also are commonly represented among othermixed-race groups, such as theMelungeon inTennessee and theLumbee people in North Carolina - orFree black people, such asGeorge Washington Chavis,John Chavis,John Gowen, orEmanuel Driggus, whom they are documented to have descent from.^[1]

Over time, people of mixed race often identified with and married more frequently into one or another of the major ethnic groups, becoming part of the white, black, or theBeaver Creek Indians community, for instance.^{[citation needed]} According to geneaological analysis, the Sweat, Chavis, and Driggers families originated fromfree Black people who migrated inland from theTidewater Region, some among the first settlers ofMarlboro County, South Carolina.^[1]

Numerous people of mixed race have lived in a section of Orangeburg County nearHolly Hill called Crane Pond. The term "brass ankles" generally was applied to those of mixed ancestry, one can also find the term Brassankles being applied to the mixed race, families of nearby Dorchester and Colleton County, South Carolina. They often had a large majority of white ancestry and would have been considered legally white in early 19th-century society.^[3] The Crane Pond community has maintained its cultural continuity. Reflecting on their ethnic diverse ancestry, there are many local stories about the origins of these people.^{[citation needed]}

Some people formerly classified as "Brass Ankles" have been identified as among ancestors of members of the fiveState-recognized tribes in South Carolina in 2005, such as theWassamasaw Tribe of Varnertown Indians. Because such tribe members often hadmultiracial ancestry including Africans, and their white neighbors did not understand much about "Croatan" culture, they were often classified asmulatto by census enumerators, who were most concerned about African ancestry. After 1930, when the US census dropped the Mulatto classification at the instigation of the southern white Democratic Congressional block, such multiracial people were often thereafter classified as black, a designation in the South used for anyone visibly "of color".^[3]

Contrary to some assertions, eachUS census through the nineteenth century had the category of Indian available for use by census takers. But, especially in the late 19th century, census enumerators often used this category only for those people living onIndian reservations or at least showing culturally that they fit what the census takers assumed was the "Indian" culture. Persons who were outwardly assimilated to the majority culture were generally classified as white, black or mulatto, depending on appearance and on the appearance of their neighbors.Dubose Heyward, author ofPorgy and Bess, with music byGeorge Gershwin, wrote a play about the Brass Ankles, set in the aftermath of the Civil War.^{[citation needed]}

Some Brass Ankles in the community ofSummerville, South Carolina identified as "Summerville Indians." During the early part of the twentieth century, when public schools were segregated for white or black students, the Summerville Indians and other Brass Ankle groups gained state approval to establish some local, separate schools for their own Indian children. Having come from families free long before the American Civil War, they did not want to send their children to school with descendants offreedmen. The Eureka "Ricka" school in Charleston County was an example of such an Indian school.^{[citation needed]}

• Play by Dubose Heyward about Brass Ankles.

Wikimedia Commons has media related toBrass Ankles.

• Mestee Groups of the South, Black Dutch blog
• "Adventures in the Gene Pool",The Wilson Quarterly, 1 January 2003, at Goliath Website
• [1]

• Multiracial ethnic groups in the United States
• Ethnic groups in South Carolina
• Native American history of South Carolina
• African–Native American relations
• African-American history of South Carolina
• Multiracial affairs in the United States
• Self-identification as Native American in the United States

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