African Americans looking to trace their genealogy can face many difficulties. While a number of the Native American nations are better-documented than the white communities of the era, the destruction of family ties and family records during the human trafficking of the Atlantic slave trade has made tracking African American family lines much more difficult. In Black Indians: A Hidden Heritage, William Katz writes that the number of Black Indians among the Native American nations were "understated by hundreds of thousands"; and that by comparing pictorial documentation to verbal and written accounts it is clear that when Black Indians were spotted in these settings, they were often simply not remarked upon or recorded by white chroniclers of the era.
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