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In 1880, while a resident of Ohio, a man named LOUIS GAYNES, declared that he was part Blackfoot Indian. This revelation was aired in a history about Morrow County published in 1880. (See: History of Morrow County and Ohio, Baskin &Co, Historical Publishers Chicago (1880) :666}
Louis was one of a small number of “ persons of color†living at that time in Morrow county Ohio, and fortunately for our research, he was given a thumbnail sketch in the above book. Here is what it says. (This is slightly, abbreviated by the poster to highlight the important historical and genealogical info)
“LOUI GAYNES, barber and confectioner; Sparta; was born in Arkansas in July, 1850. His father was a Frenchman, named Alexander Gaynes, who owned a plantation in Arkansas; his mother was an Indian of the Blackfoot tribe, a remnant of which remained in Arkansas after the main tribe had gone westward. The father died in 1854. Loui, when 9 years old, was taken by his mother to Paw Paw, Mich.; while here she was married again, and Loui being misused by his stepfather, started out into the world to do for himself. After many hardships, he arrived at Detroit;… he went to Canada, but soon returned and engaged as servant on board a steamboat; at the end of six months he secured a situation as valet…, with whom he remained three years, learning to read and write in the meantime; he served in the late war as bugler and part of the time as cavalryman; in 1879 he was married to Alice Hampton, a former slave of Wade Hampton, and moved to Sparta, where he now resides. He is the only barber in Sparta, (a small town in southwest Morrow-ed) and in connection with his shop has a confectionery store†[History of Morrow County and Ohio, Baskin &Co, Historical Publishers Chicago (1880) :666] To view unedited text see-http://www.heritagepursuit.com/Morrow/MorSBlo.htm
There is some contradictory data on the birth, and age of our subject that only further research can clarify. For example in the 1870 census Loui appears in the adjacent county of Marion, under the name of Loius GOYNES 26, Mulatto, barber and born in KENTUCKY. [Claridon Twp p27] But in the 1880 census for Morrow County, he is described under the name Lewis Goynes, 31, ½ Indian, barber, and born in ARKANSAS. [ED 133 p352B]
The case of Louis Gaynes gives us overwhelming evidence supporting our oral traditions of an Eastern Blackfoot Tribe. Even without further data on the Kentucky presence prior to Arkansas, the sketch strongly suggests that the movement of his family progressed from East of the Mississippi into Arkansas. His subsequent movement supports a prior residence on the east side of the Mississippi, because he came back eastward to Michigan and Ohio after 1849.
Moreover, some of the “remnant†that was moving “further west†probably passed though Missouri on the way to Arkansas and others scattered into Louisiana, Oklahoma and Texas. The is likely the origin of some of the Blackfoot Indian stories from descendents whose ancestors resided in these states.
We should note that prior to the Civil War, a significant number of the “persons of color†living in Morrow county, Ohio had migrated there from the NC/VA border and they carried well-known Saponi surnames. As a case in point, in the late 1880s when Loui Gaynes resided in the town Mt Gilead (county seat of Morrow) Willis E . REVELS and N. HAITCOCK were also located there. Both Hitchcock and Revels were born in NC. The census notes that Haithcock was also a barber and surely most likely had social and economic ties to Gaynes.
Bess Veney
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