The official site of William Loren Katz and Black Indians

Black Indians–Revised, Expanded and Updated

The expanded and updated edition of Black Indians: A Hidden Heritage brings the Native American and African American alliance that for four centuries challenged the European conquest and slavery into the 21st century with additional research and documentary and photographic evidence. The new edition reveals the story of the African guides and translators of the colonial era who became valued contacts with Indigenous peoples, examines the African and Indian alliance known as the Pueblo revolt of 1680 that ended Spain’s rule of the southwest for a dozen years, introduces Francisco Menendez and the 1738 Black Indian community that defended its liberty in Florida against British incursions, and much more.

Recent essays

• April 30 2013 : The Battle to Desegregate San Francisco Streetcars
  
  

  Only months after San Francisco’s horse-powered streetcar companies during the Civil War dispatched their streetcars—with orders to only accept white passengers—African American citizens began to directly challenge this discrimination.

  On April 17, 1863 Charlotte Brown, a young African American woman from a prominent family, boarded a streetcar and was forced off. Determined to assert her rights, by the year’s end Ms [...]

• February 3 2013 : Teaching Outside the Textbook: From ‘The Abolitionists’ to a Two-Term Black President
  
  

  This week PBS's The American Experience concluded "The Abolitionists," a searing three-part documentary on a fiercely committed band of white and African American freedom fighters. It took a fresh look at the anti-slavery movement, its most dramatic moments, its key figures and its amazing impact considering it was a movement which was run by hated racial and political minorities—and which [...]