Dominickers
Biracial or triracial ethnic group
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Dominickers are a small biracial or triracial ethnic group, ostensibly known since the 1860s.[2]
| Total population | |
|---|---|
| 1950 (census) | 60[1] |
| Regions with significant populations | |
| Holmes County, Florida, eastern United States | |
| Languages | |
| English | |
| Religion | |
| Baptist | |
| Related ethnic groups | |
| Brass Ankles, African-Americans, Free Black people, Melungeons, Carmelites, Lumbee, Beaver Creek Indians, Wesorts, Chestnut Ridge people, Redbones, Alabama Cajans | |
They were centered in the Florida Panhandle county of Holmes, in the southwestern part of the county west of the Choctawhatchee River, near the town of Ponce de Leon. They were known to be of mixed Black and white ancestry, to the degree that Dominicker became a term for any person who was mixed Black and white.[3][4] They were classified as one of 200 presumed "triracial isolates". Researcher Calvin L. Beale noted forty existed in Holmes County in 1950, and were marked as white on the census.[5][1]
Etymology
The nickname "Dominickers", taken as pejorative, was said to come from a local man in a divorce case describing his estranged wife as "black and white, like an old Dominicker chicken."[2]
History
The first known mention in print of the Dominickers was in a 1939 American Guide series on Florida. The article "Ponce de Leon" identifies the Dominickers as being mixed-race descendants of the widow of a pre-Civil War plantation owner's widow and one of her Black slaves, by whom she had five children. The article mentioned they multipled over time, populating the backwoods, typically in poverty.[3][6]
Before integration, their children were required to attend a one-room, twenty student segregated school (as required by Florida's Jim Crow laws). They were not provided with busing and had to walk twenty miles to school. A Dominicker graveyard adjoined the school.[3]
Dominickers were not accepted as social equals by the white community, but they kept themselves apart from the main black community. They formed a small middle layer of Holmes County society separate from both whites and blacks. Academic Ralph D. Howell suggested they looked Spanish or Cuban, noting some claimed Spanish origin, but stated some appeared to be Black.[3] The Redbones of southwestern Louisiana, who the Dominickers were mapped as residing nearby to, were sometimes called Dominics.[7]
After desegregation, locals had varied opinions on if most Dominickers had assimilated into the main populations.[4]