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Pappydick wrote recently in another thread:
“…….And I do think something more akin to the “tarheel” concept is likely, as someone else has already suggested. These people spent much of their history in or near swamps, and if that’s where you walk, you do have black feet.”
I’ve been thinking about starting a separate thread for swamps for awhile just because it appears that the people we are looking at did spend a good bit of time living in or near swamps. [I’ve also thought about starting a thread for occupations, too.]
The forest economy or industry in colonial days and somewhat later is very fascinating. According to Bernard Herman in THE STOLEN HOUSE some of the occupations of the foresters & folks who lived on the edge of the swamps, a lower economic class, would include CHARCOAL BURNERS, hunters, and “hard scrabble” farmers.
OUOTE:
“The laboring class of foresters in the Cypress Swamp was composed of whites and blacks– both free and slave. They rarely owned land, could neither read nor write, and left little evidence of their lives in the public record except in extraordinary circumstances of accidents or conflict. Many lived in small houses scattered around the edge of the forest or on tiny islands in the swamp; they reported to work on a daily basis or simply did piecework until they had amassed a sufficient hoard of staves, shingles, or spokes to sell. Others, like the woodcutters and charcoal burners employed by the local bog-iron furnace master, were equiped with blankets and sent into the forest for periods ranging from a few days to several weeks.” (Herman, Bernard L.; THE STOLEN HOUSE, University Press of Virginia, 1992, p. 71.)
Additionally, these folk could be employed as needed as the swamp land’s owner’s own personal militia– things got pretty wild at times. This is true of Dagworthy and his holdings, and later of his heirs.
I would imagine that a charcoal burner’ feet would get pretty black, too. Blackfoot Town was on the edge of the Great Cypress Swamp.
There is a pretty good profile of Dagworthy and his industry in this book. He was in the area before Braddock’s Defeat….The book centers around a particular court case in 1812 involving, believe it or not, a stolen house– it was actually moved from one site to another– and a lawsuit of heirs against their stepfather for stealing their inheritance. A really interesting study of who and what and who doesn’t get into local court records, the material culture of this area around Blackfoot Town or Dagsboro, and the transition from a wilderness society to an agriculatural and industrial society. The descriptions of the Great Cypress or Pocomoke Swamp– the site of Winnesoccum– are awesome. Herman does not mention remnant Indians at all and my guess is that he sees the area as black and white. However, in reading one can keep Frank Speck, C. A. Weaslager, and later Ned Heite in mind. Some thoughts to ponder…. to me it seems really a good environment to support the survival of remnant native groups.
I believe it was Weaslager who connected the surname Soccum and the ?suffix? soccum to swamp, but I can’t remember now if it was in reference to the Nanticoke or Delaware.
Brenda
Have Keel and Whitaker as well as Collins that lived around Guy’s Hall Swamp. There was a plantation there to the north side of this swamp in Bertie County, N.C.
Then there is the colonial Collins and Johnson families that were in Nansemond County, VA areas on the Kingsale Swamp and also the Great Dismal Swamp.
Brenda, you mentioned in your last post three men the last being a Ned Heite. I am interested in this last name so could you give me some information on this man? Ed
I’m just pasting this in from another thread (about a related Eastern Siouan group) as presumably relevant here:
Originally posted by Dan Akin
To all; After scratching around to try and learn more about the Mohetons and Tomahetons I came across a webpage at http://www.poythress.net/poytland.html
It has Thomas Poythris June 20, 1733 with 400 a. on the lower north side of TOMAHETON Swamp, patent 15 pg. 59. This was in Prince George Co. Va.
Ed,
If Brenda will forgive me for preempting her (She just started a new job, so she is busy.), I will give you some assistance here, and she can add when she has time, since she knows more than me. We communicate a lot about Blackfoot Town, looking for connections (A few of my names come from there – Street, Clark, Houston, and McCartney). Heite studies this area.
Heite was the historian who investigated Native American isolates in the Delmarva peninsula where Blackfoot Town was located. See this web site : http://www.mitsawokett.com/ . A few of his articles are posted and there is a group who communicate about their genealogy.
Techteach
In the spirit of the post by Techteach (saving Brenda the time, etc.) I’ll tell you where to find the voluminous papers of Frank G. Speck, at the American Philosphical Society in Philadelphia:
http://www.amphilsoc.org/library/mole/s/speck.htm
Anthropologist and ethnographer Frank Gouldsmith Speck was unique among Franz Boas’ early graduate students at Columbia University. Unlike other ethnographers of his time who focused their studies on the Western Indian tribes, Speck chose to study the cultures of the Eastern Woodland Indians. Becoming the self-appointed salvage ethnographer for those tribes, Speck was regularly with the Indians he studied, collecting all aspects of their culture.
The Frank G. Speck Papers consist of 15.5 linear feet of Speck’s professional correspondence, field notes, lecture notes, and manuscripts of published and unpublished works. The material focuses on the Eastern Woodlands Indians, particularly the Catawba, Cherokee, Creek, Delaware, Houma, Iroquois, Labrador Eskimo, Mantagnais-Naskapi, Nanticoke, Penobscot, Powhatan, Algonkian, and Yuchi. The collection is divided into two subcollections: Subcollection 1 is comprised of Speck’s research material and correspondence, and Subcollection 2 consists of his manuscripts and related correspondence. The two subcollections were acquired separately by the Society, and were originally cataloged as the Frank G. Speck Papers (572.97 Sp3) and the Frank G. Speck Manuscripts on Native Americans (970.3 Sp3p) respectively.
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If you go to the link, there’s a lot more information by clicking around on their menu. One tidbit is that the collection was organized for scholarly use, many years ago, by the young Anthony F.C. Wallace. He himself went on to a long and very distinguished career as an interpreter of the historical record of Native Americans. (Look him up on Amazon, buy his books, read them. Unsolicited plug. For Wallace, not Amazon.)
I have posted a reference to one of my ancestors’ land on Corduroy Swamp, south side of Meherrin River, in 1742. This discussion is in the Share Genealogy Research forum; thread is about “simon jeffreys and tar river neighbors.” I have no proof that the ancestor in question was Saponi, but it appears that some of his relatives and neighbors were.
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