Category: 18. Literature on triracial isolates
and mixed bloods; eugenics

698. Estabrook, Arthur H., and Ivan E. McDougle. Mongrel Virginians: The WIN tribe. Baltimore: Williams and Wilkins, 1926. Pp. 188-94.

All names (county, tribe, surname) are changed in this book. The section on “Robin County, North Carolina” and its Indians called “Rivers” discusses, in a somewhat belittling tone, the Indians’ physical characteristics and attitudes toward Blacks. Nicole Rafter notes that Estabrook was one of 250 field workers trained at a summer school run by the Eugenics Records Office at Cold Spring Harbor, NY, from 1910-1924 (see her White Trash: The Eugenic Family Studies 1788-1919, Northeastern UP, 1988, p. 20). She asserts that the eugenics movement had as “another, less insistent, theme ... the inferiority of foreigners and dark-skinned people” (p. 7) and calls Mongrel Virginians the “most racist of all” of family studies reflecting this theme (p. 8).

To view some of the photographs of Robeson County Indians that were taken during Estabrook's research for this book, visit the Web site, Image Archive on the American Eugenics Movement. Click on "Enter the Archive," then click on "Search the Image Archive." Click to Accept the usage guidelines of the site. Enter one the these three ID numbers: id1261, id1262, id1263. Then click on any of the subject heading links provided for the match.

This annotation first appeared in The Lumbee Indians: An Annotated Bibliography (McFarland, 1994), by Glenn Ellen Starr.

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