Hey, the book was for students in my Africana-Americana Folklore course. I did it that way because they were always from different parts of the Americas and the rest of the world. They were often poor, and what we covered wasn't available in a single text. So, I divided it up into units as pdfs. Eventually, it became the basis for the Department's folklore course, and an introduction to the various disciplines in the department. I.e., history, art, music, literature, and culture in general. One premise is that folklore is the education you don't get in school, which is usually more essential for survival. There's the story you read in schoolbooks, and then there's "your" story. For example, the importance of the kola nut
. Because of the scope, much of the course is audio-visual. Anyway, I can send you the pdfs. The introduction will explain the logic and will set you up.
There's a good book "Black Indians" on that specific subject. Yeah, the Black Caribs are a specific example of "marronage." The story about the shipwrecks can't be confirmed, but the St Vincentians believe it. There are maroons in almost every country in the Americas. But, in the US, there's there's black and white, and the rest don't matter.
Afa racial identification among Indians, it really depends on the people/tribe. Indians in the Americas didn't rape because most felt they would be responsible for the offspring. If they took women, they made them wive, and their children grew up Indian. Kwana Parker was a famous chief whose mother had been captured. In fact, captured women who were freed often preferred to go back to the Indians. Ok, some might call it Stockholm syndrome, or might prefer to think it was so. However, there's a famous John Wayne movie (the Searchers) where he goes to find a girl who's been living with Indians just to kill her. I.e., she'd be better dead.
Anyway, anyone taken into the tribe would become one of the people. Otoh, being Black wasn't so good for Estevanico who, with Cabeza de Vaca, was the first to explore the Southwest. Estevanico was considered a shaman by some of the people he met, but one tribe --perhaps fearful of his influence on another, or as an emissary for a Spanish expedition-- saw him as bad luck and killed him. (Look him up.)
Oh, Santorum, well look up Squanto and Samoset. Btw, the Pilgrims did not come for religious freedom because they didn't have it in England. They came because they felt there was too much religious freedom there. King James had just written a book on demonology. Look that up too. Not that I think you doubt me, Greg. I used to tell all my students to check anything I said. They have probably never read those things in the "history" books they're given. We have children being told for twelve years that Columbus sailed on the Nina, Pinta, and Santa Maria, and no one --especially not Africans-- knew the world was round.