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In the past years that I have been a member here, I have often heard of “Cherokee Nationalism”, that is like the old stories that abound almost nationally ofcourse, “Grandma – Grandpa so and so was a Cherokee’ or even the Princess story., (which may not be as far fetched in a way since any little girl would steal her parents heart away from any group).
After being a member here for sometime it is becoming very clear that one of the “by products” of Saponi Town has been to diminish the “CN” identities..
this has only been possible through hard work and research.
My current research has slowed down considerably after finding records back into the 1820’s, those records do show that family members did go back into the heart of the Eastern Siouan communities, although one has remained in TN. but eventually it looks asthough that may leave aswell.
So now the “CN” identification has been tempered with some real factual information coming only from good research, now instead of only one tribal group back there, there are several and Cherokee only being one of them.
I can’t help but ponder how many other people are coming to the same conclusions?
Tom wrote: I can’t help but ponder how many other people are coming to the same conclusions?
That’s the same conclusion I’ve come to. A lot of the credit goes to the people at this site and the years of research that has been shared here. Saponi, Nottoway, Meherrin, etc ancestry answer more questions than anything else, and comes form the line I’d thought was Cherokee.
It has often crossed my mind that this is not surprising that people called themselves Cherokee. Of course, there is the fact that people thought that the Cherokee were “civilized” or “tame” if you will. However, given that many were rounded up and combined with the Cherokee tribe by the government when forced to go to OK, I wonder if this might be part of the problem.
I really think our Greens were Shawnee, DAJA2. In fact, I just found a copy of a letter from the editor of “The Green Tree” who says that Shawnee is the rampant Green family story in Licking County, OH. The Shawnee were one of those tribes who were initially called Cherokee.
Techteach
The entertainment industry did it’s part too. Ha Ha
I think it was something that influenced the stories at the time…say around the 50’s with the Daniel Boone and Davey Crockett television programs, to where someone elaborated on a story using the Cherokee to make stories, family related or not,interesting to kids. Much like my mother always telling me on road trips to Cherokee N.C., and other places, that the fog in the hills was actually smoke signals from the Indians that lived in them. Which had my little mind wandering and wondering…kept me entertained for a long time on the road at any rate.
But when I got older, and knew better, the stories pertaining to the subject matter on the family stories changed to the real deal concerning the Shawnee, as well as my mother’s surname not being what it really should have been. I dug around on both subjects and found out she was told the truth. So it was never “denial” or “made-up history” in the family. The truth was told, but at the age when we could understand.
Tom; Have I said lately just how much I appreciate you and all of the moderators here at Saponitown? You guys consistently do a great job and always with a great attitude.
It has turned out that my Green family’s Cherokee ID stretches back into Virginia in the 1600’s and was most likely the end result of what is now concidered extinct tribes such as the Wyanoke, Appomattock, Moheton, Tommohitton, etc. These tribes once held a roll as middlemen in the trade between first the Powhatan Confederacy and second the Virginia Colony and other tribes to the south and west including the Cherokee.
They later positioned themselves in the general western migration into southwest Virginia and northeastern Tennessee and did have some association with the Cherokees up until the 1830’s.
Dan.
Hey Dan great to hear from you I always enjoy your posts!
Thanx from the moderators, it’s always good news to get feed back from the members of Saponi Town.
I am curious what happened to the Wyanoke etc, these people must have had a sizable population in order to be a controlling force in early trade.
I am pretty familiar with the western southeatern tribes and many of those people suffered the same fate, however many of thier descendants are still around, even though these “little known” tribes are not in plain view chances are many of them have descendants somewhere.
The problem is with trying to locate these tribes today is where do you look,? If you tyed back into these groups that would be a huge landmark in Native American studies, having documenatble sources for the histories of these groups , well many a scholar would jump at the chance to see them, congradulations.
My first inclination would be in other tribes but that may be misleading becuse not all tribal peoples merged, and we have seen here that cohesive groups do tend to have out migrations, posibly splitting on old tribal lines.
The next best areas to look at would be old rurual areas that have never grown and the families there having unique identities, tracing family origins back is a major undertaking, but looking at cross sections, of records across the board is where I would begin.
Looking at larger sir names at certain times in the groups history may lead back into the areas that would be of interest, say 1870, 1850, 1830, then into other types of records, that coupled with indian traders names etc may help, but from back to front is as logical, if you can find a name associated with a tribal group.
I’t’s rebuilding history but many of the well seasoned researchers like Bill, Tech, Linda, and Pat would be most helpful.
I mainly focus on material culture and my own genealogical searches are limited, but I still look now and again and try and look at commonalities between familes etc.
Anyway, it was great to hear from you Dan, if I run across any of these tribal names I’ll be sure and post them to you.!
Hi Tom,
I am with you on this one. 🙂 As you know from our many conversations, I do have a tendency to get overwhelmed when searching for our particular line. And it seems the more I read about the merging of bands and tribes and the blurring of identities, the more it becomes a maze with a lot of dead ends and confusing turns. But that’s what I love so much about Saponi Town. We are all in this maze together and the more we research and share with each other, the closer we come to finding the truth.
Oh what I wouldn’t give for a time machine! LOL
techteach wrote:
I really think our Greens were Shawnee, DAJA2. In fact, I just found a copy of a letter from the editor of “The Green Tree” who says that Shawnee is the rampant Green family story in Licking County, OH. The Shawnee were one of those tribes who were initially called Cherokee.
Techteach
Aye Techteach, Shawnee would make sense. I just don’t know if our Greens connect before or after your line married into the Shawnee.
I was always suspicious that my McBee lot were Cherokee. Thanks to Saponitown, I’ve found a lot more of the truth about that line, as well as for the main Holland stem and its branches.
Tom wrote: My first inclination would be in other tribes but that may be misleading becuse not all tribal peoples merged, and we have seen here that cohesive groups do tend to have out migrations, posibly splitting on old tribal lines.
Tom, your first inclination is correct is some cases, though. I know someone who’s an enrolled Cherokee. But she’s really a Wyandot. Seems the Wyandots were so few that, after arriving in Oklahoma in the mid 1800s, the more numerous Cherokee “adopted” them. But the Wyandot descendants still know who they truly are.
Tom,
There may be some cultural reason for this as well.
I have always been told that my family was Cherokee. My great-grandfather still spoke Cherokee. As I have done more and more research, it appears that my family was associated with the Saponi and/or married into the “core group” in Granville County, NC.
That being said, it appears that my Riddles married Cherokee women, and if they followed the matrilineal tradition, the children would have associated with their mother’s tribe, hence the oral history of being Cherokee being passed on.
hey Rockhound. that’s a slam dunk. Bill and I have talked about this many times, that the Eastern Siouan men married Cherokee women, and that gives arise to our tribal affliations and how we describe ourselves!
This makes me smile when I hear that other members here have arrived at the same conclusions as many other researchers it just proves out our independant theories are really shared by our our Kinsmen and Kinswomen!
The connexion to the Shawnee people I think heralds the truth so much, when looking at how much our people moved around and into the different areas such as Ohio and Indiana, and having documents that palce the Shawnee people always near ours, they were obviously more than just good pals, “they waz kin”.
It makes sence that when the Shawnee people moved the may have been hosted by our tribal members in the woods where ever they and we were found. The connexions are so profound!
There was once a Shawnee Chief “Blackhoof” that lived in White County Tn, just as my people did, so it’s pretty clear!
That made Day RockHound!
Black Hoof was also known as Blackfoot.
My Shawnee, as they removed from WV to OH, bought land from the Shawnee who were living among the Wyandot. There is a story in the family that one of the Greens took his wife out to Racoontown, now Johnstown, and left her while he went back east for a few months. Some of the local NA told her that he would be killed when he returned. Supposedly, she was repeatedly told this. When he returned, they did not and were supposed to have immediately recognized him as a friend. Some family members think because they saw he was not white.
Techteach
Tom,
Another thing to point out is how very close the Cherokee land was to our families…
The Cherokee boundary in 1785 was right next door to Sneedville, TN. Here’s a map.
http://www.tngenweb.org/cessions/ilcmap54.jpg
http://www.tngenweb.org/cessions/
While geographical proximity played a role inthe intermarriage with the Cherokee, I think there’s another, bigger reason why intermarriages occurred with a nation that hadn’t been friendly until the late 1700s. A look at the larger historical context is central to my idea. I propose that the answer to the new level of friendliness lies in the history from the first years of Jamestown to the end of the final “French and Indian War” in 1763.
The first powerful nation encountered by the English in Virginia and North Carolina was the Powhatan confederacy. This was virtually destroyed in the 1640s. The colonists next turned on their Occaneechee allies during Bacon’s Rebellion, bringing the Piedmont Siouan tribes to their knees. Add into the fray slavery, assimilation with the European culture, death to disease, and the continued depredations of the Iroquois, and the numbers of most of the smaller nations was shrinking rapidly. Hence, groups like the Nansemonds and Nottoways were allying with one another and with other groups, such as the Saponi. This brings us to the early days of Fort Cristanna.
By then, the major Indian power left in Virginia and northern North Carolina was the Tuscaroras. But the Tuscaroras were increasingly incensed about thte English enslaving their women and children. Their power was broken in the war circa 1714. This left a power vacuum among the Indians in the general Piedmont region. The only remaining powers anywhere nearby were the Cherokee, Iroquois and Catawba.
The now minor nations, minor at least militarily and politically, were having problems surviving. Although not all of their members assimilated to the English culture, many who could identify themselves as Indian were mixed blood and formed their own communities. Those adhering to a more traditional lifestyle were dwindling. Due to increasing pressures from the increasingly numerous colonists, those who chose to retain the more traditional lifestyle had to make choices.
As is witnessed by several documents mentioned at this site, the Saponi and allied tribes made several trips back and forth to the Catawba. One of these was as late as circa 1755 by John Austin, Jr, and probably his wife and a brother. The results of these trips were less than satisfying. The Catawba were I a big struggle with the Shawnee, resulting in the Catawba becoming a mere shadow of themselves by 1763. So what choices were available? The only major Eastern powers left were the Iroquois (and tributary nations) and the Cherokee.
Many chose to accept the advances of their former enemies, the Iroquois, and moved north to Pennsylvania and New York, as did most (but not all) of the Tuscarora. Many of the mixed bloods moved into the fringes of Cherokee country, as apparently did some of the more traditional Indians. Some, as witnessed by records in Virginia and the Carolinas, continued to somehow live as Indians on the fringes of society into the 1800s.
It seems to me that, as appears to be true of the Tuscarora, the other groups who became tributary nations of the Iroquois were led north by most of their leadership. Hence, some of the Tutelo and Saponi retained knowledge of their heritage indefinitely, others remembering it only through the “blackfoot” oral tradition. Likewise, the Susquehannas were identified as such until the Paxton Boys wiped out the last of them. According to the oral histories some at this board have, a lot of the “tributary Iroquois” in Pennsylvania and then Ohio, etc, were Saponi and other Virginia/Carolina tribal descendants, as opposed to what the history books would say were nearly all Shawnee and Delaware. I’m guessing that many of the Moravian converts came from these tributary groups. It has been suggested, also, that the majority of the Senecas of the Sandusky consisted of tributary groups, a position with which I agree.
The groups that moved south and southwest into Cherokee country, however, I would guess were more individual family units, possibly related to some of the mixed bloods and Caucasians who were migrating south along the old Trading Path. The major reminder of Saponi heritage among those who intermarried with the Cherokees is the “blackfoot” identification.
Many of the mixed bloods who lived on the fringes of Cherokee territory migrated to the White River drainage in Indiana after the War of 1812. There were many Delaware villages nearby until the 1830s. After the Indian Removal of the 1830s, however, it became unwise to be identified as Indian in this area. Many of these families, mine included, suppressed and lost any knowledge of Indian heritage.
What I’m concluding is that, by the mid 1700s, for those Virginia and North Carolina Indians who wanted to remain Indians in a relatively free and traditional manner, if it was determined that staying in Virginia/Carolina was untenable there were only 2 choices available. They could become move north another Iroquois tributary nation, or they could move southwest and ally themselves with and intermarry with the Cherokee. The events of the preceding 150 or so years had exhausted any alternatives.
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