In 1948, Library of Congress scholar William Gilbert wrote: "Indian blood still remains noticeable in our eastern States population in spite of the depletions arising from over 300 years of wars, invasions by disease and white men from Europe and black men from Africa." Noting that Virginia's surviving Indian groups tended to retain traditions of their Native origin, Gilbert identified several Indian groups along the Blue Ridge and Piedmont zones of the state. Stating these concentrations "beginning with Rappahannock County in the north and continuing southward along the Blue Ridge through Rockbridge and Amherst counties and striking directly southward to Halifax County on the North Carolina border," he gave definition to the geographical occupation of these interior Virginia tribal groups. Specifically he identified five hundred to six hundred mixed-bloods in central and the extreme western end of Amherst County near Bear Mountain and Tobacco Row Mountain of the Blue Ridge. Known locally as "issues," he describes these people as having "a very rich brunette with straight black hair and Caucasian features." Acknowledging a second group northwest of Amherst County, he further identified "a population of over three hundred "Brown people" exhibiting a mixture of white, Indian, and occasionally Negro blood." While self-identified as American Indians, these groups were locally considered to be "mulattos" but acknowledged as "a group apart from both whites and Negroes." Before proceeding with this history of a Pochick-Nansemond band among the Monacans, the author acknowledges the derogatory nature of the racial epithets, such as "issues," "brown people," and "mulattoes" as they were inappropriately applied to these Native people. (Contains 92 notes.)