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Everybody:
My gggrandmother is my ancestor who had the Blackfoot ID. Her son, my gggrandfather, was known as “The Fox,” but my uncle’s genealogy indicates that no one knows why. (If it impacts my question, he had a white father and was light with his father’s blue eyes. He married a woman who was part Shawnee and looked very native.) Does anyone know what, if any, significance this would have in the culture we are interested with on this forum or in any native American culture from the time (late 1800’s, early 1900’s)? My great-aunt’s memoir indicates that he was popular with the ladies too, so this might be the origin of the nickname, but I thought maybe someone’s research had turned up something about this. I am aware of other groups whose sub-groups were identified by animal names. Maybe his nickname relates to this custom.
Cindy
Can you provide dates, location and surnames you are interested in? There were several Cherokee Chiefs known as “Black Fox” and we ran across him in our genealogy searches. The first one died and is buried in Blounty County, Alabama. The second was an Old Settler Chief and was in Arkansas but lived to be buried in what is now Oklahoma. The town of Inoli, Oklahoma was named after him. His Indian name was Enoli/Inoli, which means Black Fox. There was another Bill “Black Fox” Looney who was a famous warrior in the Civil War. From what I heard his family went to Missouri after the Civil War.
All Cherokee associated with the surname “Looney” are related to him. My great great grandparents raised an orphan girl surnamed “Looney” and we “might be” descended from the surname “Looney” but I am not as sure about that as I once was. We found records where a “Nancy Roney” may be who we are descended from rather than “Nancy Looney” whom we thought we were from. Anyhow, since everybody already knows the relationship between the Looney’s and Enoli, I did some researchin’ on that name. If you need more about any of these folks I have it. But you are probably talkin’ about some other “Foxes” as I think it was a pretty common name.
I don’t know anything about Shawnee traditions or genealogy tho. Sorry.
Vance:
Thanks for the response. If oral tradition is correct, this would not be a Shawnee nickname (again, assuming “The Fox” does not refer to Grandpa’s being popular with the ladies); rather it would be Eastern Blackfoot, since his mother had the Blackfoot ID. The time would be late 1800’s and early 1900’s (his mother died in 1905). The location would be eastern Iowa, although they were immigrants from Western Pennsylvania. His mother was born around 1814 in Beaver County, PA. They came to Iowa in 1852.
I was not sure if this might not be a reference to something akin to the fact that the Shawnee subdivisions were known by animal names.
It is a stretch, I know, but I thought it might be a clue to this Blackfoot ID.
Cindy
Where in Iowa was he? My great grandmother’s father moved there with a young second wife, something like that.
Where was he before Iowa?
Linda:
We aren’t related, are we? My ggggrandfather moved to Iowa with a second wife, the one who has the Blackfoot ID, John Ralston, Jr. who married Nancy Agnes McLane. They settled on the border of Jackson and Jones County, near a little town called Canton.
If you read the county history information on Jones County, many of the early settlers might have been mixed. There is a description of many settlers arriving in wagons looking like those og the “half-breeds” from the Red River (I am pulling this from memory, so I am not entirely sure I am getting it wholly correct. It is on their web site, though.), MN. This area of Iowa had an Indian agent sympathetic to native Americans, Joseph Street. In fact, I think some of my ancestors took his name; I have some Streets in my family. He is buried by Chief Wapello as per the Sac and Fox requests (This might be the source of the nickname, the Fox, too. My ggrandfather was living on land that had formerly belonged to the Sac and Fox.). Jones County also has a cemetery I am going to check out later this summer known disgracefully as “The N-Word Hill”. I would not have thought that there were many African-Americans in the boondocks of Eastern Iowa. I would like to see if I recognize some of the names there, particularly since it is close to where my native ancestors settled.
Cindy
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