Re: Rodriguez an African name?

You really need to check out Paul Heinegg's website at www.freeafricanamericans.com
Native Americans intermixed quite heavily with African Americans during the colonial period.As for saying the AFricans took their names from whites,how then did Native Americans such as the Lumbee end up with names like Locklear, Oxendine and Lowry.These don't sound like original Native American names to me,but European(possibly Scottish and Portugeese in origin.We have mixed quite heavily over the centuries.This is why we have light colored blacks with long hair, varied eye colors and rumors amongst groups such as the Mulungeons (some of whom think they are pure whites) of white couples having children with dark/olive colored skin.Many native women married black men and blacks know for a fact many of us have native ancestry.We cannot prove it by U.S. Census records because white census enumerators often recored those with Native ancestry as Black,which is why it appears Native Americans disappeared rather quickly after the colonial period.It is a shame in this day in age that the color of black skin and ancestry is still so hated in this country.