BLACK INDIAN

An author grapples with the uncertainties of her mixed racial inheritance.

With interwoven stories about the women in her Michigan family, Buchanan (Equipoise: Poems From Goddess Country, 2017, etc.), the literary editor of Harriet Tubman Press, furthers the important work she has done in her poetry, uncovering the hidden histories of families struggling to define their mixed black and Native American bloodlines to their own satisfaction. In a highly personal narrative that includes a large number of characters and vignettes, the writing is occasionally repetitive in its declarations and observations. Still, it is a unique account of the damage inflicted on blacks and Native Americans in the late 1800s. With historical anecdotes involving the migration of freed slaves, the author injects information about the Dawes Act of 1887 into her personal story, and she focuses some of her resentment for noninclusion on Native American tribes who guard their enrollment with blood quantum standards. Without paperwork, Buchanan must rely on the oral traditions of her family to give her a sense of belonging in a culture that protects itself fiercely from appropriation, and she does a careful job of explaining how she can only speak for herself. The author diligently traces her ancestry, uncovering secrets, family dysfunction, addiction, old resentments, and painful identity issues. While it often feels as if there is little hope, she tackles her difficulties with humor. Buchanan is strongest when she argues that complex federal policies are to blame for the fractured sense of identity she feels; she stumbles when she displays a lack of empathy for those enrolled Native Americans who hope to maintain a semblance of cohesion and culture after an era of genocide. Ultimately, the book will be enjoyable for readers who grapple with confusing aspects of their ancestry.

Intergenerational loss and a family’s collective identity crisis provide the backbone for a winding American tale.