My great great grandmother, My grandmother and me on Easter.

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The “Reverse-lether” label functions as an intra-community identity-policing tactic rather than a response to the historical evidence. When primary sources are cited to establish that the people called “Negro” and “Black” in the colonies were Africans and their descendants—countering claims that they were mainly reclassified Indians—this label is often deployed to short-circuit the documentary argument. It reframes those presenting the sources as advancing a disfavored modern narrative. The reply is driven more by current identity and priority disputes within parts of the community than by the 17th- or 18th-century records themselves. It does not engage the historical question. Colonial laws, censuses, shipping records, court documents, and correspondence consistently distinguish “Negroes” and “Blacks” from Indians and identify the former as people brought from Africa. While limited reclassification and some Native American enslavement occurred, these do not overturn the predominant African origin of the population labeled Negro/Black. Affirming this is standard, source-based history. The “Reverse-lether” framing imports unstated assumptions about the motives of those citing the records. It replaces discussion of the documents with a modern factional insult. That substitution makes it a non-answer to the historical correction being offered. Treating any strong emphasis on African provenance as a threat to American-specific identity boundaries is a contemporary preference. It does not constitute a factual refutation of the colonial documentation.

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No, that isn’t my logic. If their ancestors were in the Americas over 15,000 years ago, they are Native Americans. If they were later reclassified as “Negro” despite having no African ancestry in their lineage, they remain Native American—along with whatever other ancestry they may have. Reclassification was used to erase their indigeneity and strip them of legal claims to the land. That was the purpose. Why would an Indigenous person continue that erasure by identifying as Negro or Black?

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Some Indigenous people were reclassified during slavery, but according to the documents you cited, those numbers were very small compared to the much larger African (Negro) population. Not all Indians were reclassified as Negro/Black, whereas Africans were consistently classified as Negro/Black in the colonies and later in the United States. Africans arrived in the Virginia colony in 1619 already designated as Negroes. Before that, the Indigenous people in those British colonies were called Indians, not Negroes.

This document describes Indians being exported from South Carolina to the Caribbean. Those individuals did not contribute to the population of the present-day United States. What point are you trying to make?

You stated that they were having children, which only makes sense if you believe Indians exclusively had children with other Indians. Unfortunately, the degree of intermixing (if any) is impossible to determine from the available records. What the documents you cited actually show is that enslaved Africans outnumbered Indians.

Those are distinct populations—Black people and Indians. If they were interbreeding, the children would be of mixed African and Indian descent. So why are you falsely accusing me of ‘Africanizing’ our population when that’s exactly what you’re doing?

You are guilty of perpetuating the Africanization of our population by citing documents that show by the 17th and 18th centuries, Africans already outnumbered Native Americans on the slave plantations in question. If anyone is ‘Africanizing’ the demographic history of that population, it’s the evidence itself—not me. Those are your documents not mine. 👇🏽

I never said it did. You first said I ignored the documents you posted about enslaved Indians. Once I used those same documents to show how low the numbers of enslaved Indians actually were in Louisiana, South Carolina, Illinois, Virginia, and elsewhere, you shifted the discussion to our overall population size. That’s a deflection. You’re no longer addressing the specific evidence you introduced.

“None of those documents show that Indian enslavement numbers were high. They actually support that the numbers were low compared to enslaved Africans, who were typically about four times as numerous.”

I didn’t ignore anything. The records you posted show that in the 17th and 18th centuries, Africans outnumbered Indians by roughly 4 to 1 in most states. If I had ignored you, how would I know that? I’ve included the documents you posted below. I always do my due diligence. As a leader of the Freedmen Nation Trust, your disingenuous approach and the questions it raises about your character are likely why more people haven’t become members of my organization. Please try to be more professional. You are not the only person who can start a Freedmen Trust.