Overview

A Choice Outstanding Academic Title for 2014 ""This tremendous book, wisely honing in on one state, one set of political agendas, and a chronological view of the phenomenon of negotiated ethnicity, is the most thorough treatment of the topic this reviewer has read. A pure joy! . . . Essential."" -CHOICE That the Blood Stay Pure traces the history and legacy of the Commonwealth of Virginia's effort over four centuries to maintain racial purity and its impact on the relationships between African Americans and Native Americans. Dr. Arica L. Coleman tells the story of Virginia's racial purity campaign from the perspective of those who were disavowed or expelled from tribal communities due to their affiliation with people of African descent or because their physical attributes linked them to those of African ancestry. Coleman also explores the political and social consequences of the racial purity ethos for tribal communities that have refused to define Indian identity based on a denial of blackness. This rich interdisciplinary history engages various disciplines, including Ethnic Studies, Sociology, Political Science, Law, and Critical Race Theory. It includes contemporary case studies-late twentieth-century through early twenty-first century- exploring a neglected aspect of America's long struggle with race and identity.

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9781883435059

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Reviews

""Brave, brilliant, exciting. That the Blood Stay Pure looks to me like a prize-winner. The author attacks the broad history of race in US history-the ways it has worked, the ways in which it has been portrayed, including by historians and anthropologists-with an empirical focus on Virginia as a particularly illuminating case study. Every chapter takes a provocative, fresh look at its subject."" -Peter Wallenstein, Virginia Tech""Coleman has produced a provocative book, dealing with situations that are, as she notes, 'filled with controversy and pain.' From the first arrival of African workers as servants and slaves in 1619, Indian-Black relations have been engaged in, denied, legislated, and above all complicated by sociohistorical constructions of race and the meanings and values of racially defined groups. Sifting through the histories and writing clearly and openly, Coleman seeks to untangle the webs of meaning and fairly represent the individuals and groups involved. This powerful volume is a significant contribution to the literatures on race and race relations in Virginia."" - Frederic W. Gleach, author of Powhatan's World and Colonial Virginia: A Conflict of Culture""This is strong, innovative work that historicizes and challenges the legal construction and maintenance of 'racially pure' categories, as well as established hierarchies of race and privilege. Coleman's project moves far beyond America's fading, 'black-white binary' as a means of mapping the nation's racialpolitics. In doing so, the book suggests a far more multicultural future on the horizon. Thoroughly researched and well written, That the Blood Stay Pure is necessary reading."" -Ed Guerrero, New York University.""That the Blood Stay Pure provides a crucial missing chapter of America's racial history--the toxic consequences of Virginia's racial purity campaign on Black-Indian identities and relationships. Coleman boldly confronts the taboo topic of anti-Black racism that endures in some Indian tribes, while offering an alternative vision of recognition, reconciliation, and respect. This eye- opening book will expand and challenge your thinking about race."" --Dorothy Roberts, University of Pennsylvania--Dorothy Roberts, University of Pennsylvania.""Coleman's book certainly contributes to the ongoing debates about the rites and rights of Indianness, as well as the crucial ways of imagining and realizing inclusion, exclusion, and state(s) of belonging in Native American and African American communities. . . [A]ttempts of claiming Indianness and Indian racial (read: blood) authenticity, of disclaiming and stigmatizing blackness, of maintaining and policing 'that the blood stay pure, ' continue today not only in Indian communities/tribes in Virginia but also throughout Indian country."" -American Historical Review""Readers across the breadth of Native American studies will appreciate this valuable critical contribution to the field. . .The continuance of peoples in this region has been a less popular subject than the documentation of their past presence, so Coleman offers a text that bridges that divide, demonstrating the immense importance of the past to the present, and even future, of relations."" -Native American and Indigenous Studies

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