Blue Highways: A Journey into America

by William Least Heat-Moon

All right, here’s how Othello got the name. Ignore other versions. In Cumberland County we have a settlement of people called ‘tri-bloods,’ people that trace their history—or legend—back to a Moorish—Algerian, specifically—princess who came ashore after a shipwreck in the first years of the nation. The Indians took her in, and, from the subsequent mixing of blood—later with a small infusion from the Negro—there developed a group composed of three races. The ‘Delaware Moors,’ they’re called. A similar branch is the Carolina Yellowhammers. “In the thirties and forties, governmental bureaucrats—especially in Delaware—they had a time trying to classify tri-bloods because the people considered themselves neither white, red, nor black. Usually they ended up in their own category, one so small as to be forgotten. To this hour, the people remain what you might describe as aloof, and they maintain themselves as independently as they can. Clannish, even secretive. But they always have been landowners and farmers. Never slaves. Still, they are—to use the phrase—‘men of color’ and consequently suspect, especially in border states, despite their features usually being more Indian than Negroid. Aquiline nose, straight hair, high cheekbones.” “I haven’t seen any blacks in Greenwich.” “That may be. They live just up the road at Springtown, one of the first stops on the Underground Railroad. The name comes from a place a Negro could ‘spring’ for his freedom. A springboard. But I’m talking ...