Dominickers facts for kids

The Dominickers were a group of people with mixed backgrounds who lived in Holmes County, Florida. They were once found near the town of Ponce de Leon. In 1950, the United States Census Bureau described them as one of the groups in the Eastern United States with mixed Native American, White, and Black heritage. Not much is known about how they started, and there isn't a lot of information published about them.

Who Were the Dominickers?

The Dominickers were first mentioned in a book called Florida: A Guide to the Southernmost State, published in 1939. This book said that the Dominickers were descendants of a woman who owned a large farm before the Civil War and one of her workers. They had five children together. Some stories also say that the worker was related to the woman's husband.

Many descendants of this group still lived in the area when the book was written. Their children had to go to separate schools because of laws that kept people of different races apart. The Dominickers were not fully accepted by the white community. However, they also kept themselves separate from the main Black community. They formed a small middle group in Holmes County society, different from both white and Black people.

People said that Dominickers could look very different from each other, even within the same family. Some had very fair skin, while others had darker skin. The nickname "Dominickers" was considered a mean name. It supposedly came from a local man who described his wife as "black and white, like an old Dominicker chicken." Another story says this description was used for the man she was living with.

More About the Dominickers

Some old writings, which were meant for the Florida guidebook but not included, are kept at the University of Florida library. These writings give more details about how Dominickers looked and acted. Local people sometimes described them in unkind ways.

The men were described as "big and burly," and were known for being good at training horses and making homemade alcohol. The women were described as being shorter and fuller, often wearing loose clothes and going barefoot.

One writing noted that Dominickers were treated unfairly. For example, they were "never served at a public fountain nor introduced to a white person." A few Dominicker children were allowed to attend the white high school in Westville. But they were "never allowed to actually graduate."

However, old photographs of Dominickers from the late 1800s and early 1900s show something different. Their appearance ranged from fair to darker skin, but not always as described in the writings. Many women, in particular, seemed to have an "olive-skinned" look with wavy hair. A writer from the area later said, "Most of these people are Spanish or Cuban in appearance."

Native American Roots

The old writings mention five different stories about where the Dominickers came from. Some stories include Euchee Indian ancestors. It's possible there were several different mixed-heritage families in the area at first. These families had different mixes of white, Black, and Native American backgrounds. Over time, their descendants married each other, and eventually, they were all called Dominickers. One writing says they were "about three-fourths white and one-eighth Black and one-eighth Indian."

For example, one story says that in the early 1800s, an "Indian prince" named Jim Crow (not related to the later segregation laws) married Harriet. She was an enslaved house servant who was mostly white. They had a daughter named Eliza. When the Euchee people moved to southern Florida in 1832, Harriet and her baby stayed with the white family. When Eliza grew up, she married a man named Jim Harris, who also had a mixed background. Their daughter, Lovey, married another man with mixed heritage and had a large family. These children "married into another half-breed family." It is also said that other Euchee people left many descendants in the area.

Many families in Holmes County today say they have Native American ancestors, especially from the Creek Indians. The Creek were a larger Native American nation in the Southeast. The local Choctawhatchee Creek have formed a group and are trying to get state recognition.

Old Records and Censuses

Old government records from Holmes, Walton, and Washington counties, going back to 1850, list many Dominicker families. They were sometimes listed as white, mulatto (mixed white and Black), or Black. Sometimes, even members of the same family were given different classifications. How a person was classified often changed from one census to the next. This depended on what the census taker thought.

These records show that after the Civil War, many Dominickers married white people. Their children then had even more white ancestry. In 1930, a new rule was put in place for the census. It said everyone had to be classified as either Black or white. This hid the large number of people with mixed backgrounds in the South.

In 1950, the government census asked workers to note groups of people with mixed white, Black, and Native American ancestry in the eastern United States. In Holmes County, Florida, 60 Dominickers were counted this way. However, they were officially listed as white on the census.

In 1956, a worker from the United States Public Health Service visited the area. He interviewed some white residents but could not meet any Dominickers. At that time, there were said to be about 40 Dominickers left. His notes show that at least one Dominicker claimed to be of Spanish and Native American descent. He also noted that "the term Dominicker is not acceptable to the group and is not used in their presence."

Blending In and Moving On

In the 1960s, after the US Supreme Court ruled that separate schools were unconstitutional in the Brown v. Board of Education case, the school system closed the Black school in Ponce de Leon. Students of color then went to the other local public schools.

Some descendants of the Dominicker group still live in the area. But since World War II, many have moved to other parts of the country. Those who stayed in Holmes County and nearby places have quietly blended in with the white community. There is no organized group for Dominicker descendants today.

Other Similar Groups

The Dominickers are sometimes mentioned when people talk about Melungeon people or other groups with mixed heritage. However, there is no known connection between the Dominickers and any other mixed-heritage group.

According to one account, around 1857, more than 100 mixed-heritage families from Holmes County moved by wagon to Louisiana. There, they became part of a group known as Redbones. The Redbones are a known group in southwestern Louisiana, and their origins are still debated. There have been marriages between Redbones and relatives of the Holmes County Dominickers. But there is no proof that the two groups started from the same place.