Indian River Hundred Speck Summary

Nevertheless, Speck’s arrival in Indian River Hundred proved particularly fortuitous for the Nanticoke, who were at the time facing new challenges to their collective identity. Despite the 1881 law that established a tripartite school system, the county appointed a black teacher to work at the Warwick School in the 1910s and several black children were enrolled soon after. A group of Nanticoke responded unfavorably to these turn of events. After withdrawing their children from the Warwick school the parents helped to set up a third school in Indian River Hundred called the Indian Mission School. Eventually white neighbors started to exert pressure on the all the Nanticoke to accept classification as “Negroes.” Under the direction of William Russell Clark, the de facto leader of the Nanticoke, the group sought Speck’s advice for how to protect their racial integrity. Unaware of the formation of the Incorporated Body in the late nineteenth century, Speck advised the Nanticoke to obtain a lawyer and pursue incorporation as an Indian community. In a move to solidify their race consciousness the community applied for incorporation as the Nanticoke Indian Association in February 1922. Unlike the Incorporated Body, the Nanticoke Indian Association was specifically chartered as an Indian tribal group. The association became the sole administrator of the Indian Mission School and membership fees were used to support the school and pay the teacher. Although several Nanticoke parents withdrew their children from Warwick, not every parent wanted to assume the fiscal responsibilities that came with placing their children in the new privately funded school. Thus, many families continued to send their children to Warwick, a moved that divided the Nanticoke community. Speck accused those families who continued to allow their children to attend the now integrated Warwick school of being less proud of their Indian heritage. The creation of the Nanticoke Indian Association complicated the already delicate state of family and community relations among the Nanticoke people. Attendance in churches and schools became not only a way for the community to establish differences between themselves and outsiders, they also served to differentiate factions within the community, a process further complicated by the various blood or marriage ties that linked the Nanticoke. Racial tensions cut across the Nanticoke community when, for example, an elder member of the Indian Association – as the encounter was described by one of Speck’s graduate students – who was “violently anti-Negro… had trouble explaining the Negro character of his wife.” Individuals who shared these “anti-Negro” sentiments attended separate schools and churches from those who were more open to the idea of associating with blacks. The Indian Association also established strict criteria for membership in the association in order to more sharply differentiate itself from the more welcoming faction they called the “Harmony people.” Whereas early members of the association needed only to prove that they were of good moral character, by the 1930s, new members were also required to show that they possessed “at least two-thirds Indian blood.” Speck, greatly impressed by the fervor with which the Nanticoke defended their racial integrity, spent the 1920s helping the Nanticoke learn more about their history and culture. When the newly formed Indian Association held its first meeting in November of 1922, members invited Speck to give a lecture on Nanticoke history from 1740 to the present. Described …show more content…
Unlike the Ramapo, who Speck accused of lacking a conscious self-identity, the Delaware Nanticoke maintained a strong collective consciousness. The exclusivity maintained by prohibiting intermarriage with their black neighbors was just one of many barriers set up to protect the group from outside influence. Thus, social standing, group consciousness, and most importantly a willingness to preserve this group consciousness also powerfully influenced Speck’s willingness to advocate on a community’s behalf. Speck’s research is also instructive for what it reveals about his promotion of “authentic” versus “inauthentic” Indian identity. Although he did not use the terms, Speck’s anthropological research established the criteria by which social scientists as well as the government agencies could determine who qualified as a “real” India. Speck determined which cultures were worthy of study and which were not. In so doing, he established the measures by which to bound the parameters of American Indian