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I have been reading “Who’s Your People”, a dissertation by Richard Allen Carlso, Jr. I am amazed.
It speaks of the Saponi who lived near the Germanna Colony near ex-Gov. Spotswood’s lands as having been Christianized, and this is recorded. There is a lot more recorded about these poeple other than they set the woods on fire and were accused of stealing hogs. He also speculates as to how they obtained their surnames, saying many may have just taken the surname of someone they respected.
He has an entire chapter entitled “The Saponi Diaspora and the Christian Band of Saponi”. I have been thinking this all along. And he also mentions some Saponi near the NC/SC border near the Catawba. Maybe this is why Nevil Wayland (a surname found in the Germanna Colony) is on the NC/SC border for a while. These Christian Saponi end up being the Melungeons in his book, and Nevil lived with the Melungeons. One of Nevil’s commanding officers in the Revolutionary war was “John Collins” and there is a prominent “John Collins” who is Saponi during this time frame in his book, who is also a part of this “Christian Band” of Saponi.
Everyone researching the Saponi ought to read this dissertation. I am just up to p. 130 and there are 711 pages, filled with referrences. I am more certain than ever that many people who believe they have some ancestors who are “Cherokee” are in reality from some of these groups.
He talks much about the “Salyersville Indians”, a group in E Ky who are related to the Melungeons. This might also explain the Scott Co, Tn, Wayne and McCreary Co., Ky Indians also who have been labled Cherokee, yet the Cherokee say they have never heard of them. This is a perfect explanation. Some where in those 711 pages he will mention some Cherokee mixing with them, which will fit nicely with the Blackfoot-Cherokee lable in many families.
I can’t wait to finish it.
Vance
http://www.saponitown.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&threadid=1252&highlight=carlson
Heidi,
Go to the link above. It is under Salyersville Indians in the Genealogy section. But this dissertation tells a lot of history so I wanted it here, too.
I ordered it snail mail and it came in 2 weeks.
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Linda, how do you edit the title of a thread? My keyboard often it skips or doubles letters that I type, or in doesn’t place them in the order I typed them, or I type one letter and it is ornery, and my keyboard places another letter in the place of the one I typed . . . 🙁
Believe it or not I DO know how to spell most words, really . . . altho that might prove difficult for me to prove.
Anyhow the letter “C” is missing from the beginning of the title of this thread.
Vance
Thanks, Vance, for the redirection. I’m going to pursue getting a copy of the dissertation.
Meanwhile, I ran across the following item yesterday; thought the book described might run across some of the objects of research for some posting at Saponitown. Sorry I can’t post a link. I’m a quasi-Luddite.
“The words “Bible Belt” might not immediately bring to mind images of Muslim slaves, North Carolina Jews or southeastern Indians, but these should be part of any conversation about religion in the American South, according to Beth Barton Schweiger, a history professor at the University of Arkansas.
Schweiger and her colleague, Donald G. Mathews of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, edited a book on religion in the American South from the beginning of the 18th century to the Civil Rights movement of the 1960s. “Religion in the American South: Protestants and Others in History and Culture,” published by the University of North Carolina Press, incorporates essays from young scholars on different perspectives on religious experiences…The essays address a variety of subjects often not considered in discussions of the Bible Belt, including Muslim slaves, biracial revivals, southeastern Indians, Confederate soldiers, North Carolina Jews, white Pentecostals and black Memphis emigres to Detroit….The collection also embraces the ambiguity of stories of faith in the American South, according to Schweiger. It raises questions about 18th-century religious history, conversion narratives, the cultural power of prayer, the importance of women in exploiting religious contexts in innovative ways and the interracialism of Southern religious history.”
In addition to my own family patterns (my Richardsons were Cumberland Presbyterian in Kansas, maybe in Kentucky, too), I am by vocation (I’m a Lutheran pastor) interested in American religious history and migrations. I thought the aforementioned book may have some interesting tidbits about “Christianizing” the Native Americans of NC, VA, et al, and religious patterns among multiracial groups. Thought I’d pass it along to any who are interested.
Meanwhile, I’ll bone up on the link stuff, eh?
Heidi
Heidi,
For a while I was i the process of becoming a United Methodist Misister, but then my marrriage fell apart (as did I) but I am thinking of that option once again.
There is a lot of documentation of Christian identified Indians that I too am very interested in. Those mentioned in the book are the Primitive Baptists. But there are records also of Methodist, Presbyterian, and Moravian missionaries. He mentions some Saponey living on the Yadkin that were written about in the Moravian Diaries of th Moravian Mission on the Yadkin in NC. I’d love to get ahold of those diaries. I recall somone mentioning the “Yadkin Indians Town” somewhere andI bet it was those Saponi Carlson wrote about.
As a minister perhaps you know of old documents from tribal lands? I have gleaned some of my family history from such.
I do see some more things in his book that are very tantilizing, a tease if you will. He mentions an 1820 map that shows the location of “Melungian Indian Town”, and says they used the French word “Melunge” with means “mixed”, and hte word really means “Mixed Indian own”implying Indians from several tribes (principle of these being the Saponi) “mixed” to form this Indian community. But he gives no “proof” that I saw.
But it is an explanation that dos make a lot of sense. From what I read, Indians at Fort Christianna were a mixture of many tribes already. Being from “Oklahoma” makes me an “Oklahoman” by birthright. So being a “Melunge” or a mixed-tribe person (NOT a mixed racial group, but rather a group of mixed-tribes) would make me a “Melungean” as well. The “n” at the end denotes a people and that preceeding is simply a descriptive identifier of the people.
The reference to his “map” he mentions in his notes was misplaced and he has never seen it. where is it? Also he mentions his own family th “Coles” and says they were Cherokee that came North, left the Cherokee Nation, sometme after 1795, but again, shows no “proof” of this. When people mention Saponi ancestor, they go through all kinds of proofs to show this relationship, but when they mention Cherokee, so often show no proof of at all of it. Why is this? It has become a pet peeve of mine, and I really hope people who left the Cherokee nation really make an effort to PROVE this relationship in the future, more so than in the past.
Vance
Vance, I downloaded the Carlson piece yesterday at my office, printed off the first three chapters, and am starting on a close reading today after I finish tomorrow’s sermon. I didn’t copy off the introduction yet; probably should have, but I was wrestling with the table of contents pagination, the printing pagination and my normal degree of impatience with technological matters that force me to think about them, so I skipped to the chapters. I’ll try to get into the intro after the weekend.
I’m really grateful for your directing me to it and to the other thread. I now remember reading those other posts some time ago, but I hadn’t yet signed onto the forum, and I was at a different point in my research so that I wasn’t yet sure about what questions and directions I ought to pursue.
I’m looking forward to reading the stuff about the Melungeon “mix” as Native tribal mixes. I confess to being rather confused by the diverse voices and hypotheses posted on the Web regarding Melungeons. Most of the information I’ve read is so new to me that I don’t have the critical background necessary for discerning truth from spoof. When it comes to such matters, I generally use Occam’s razor – the simplest explanation as the most plausible – which would make the Carlson explanation an interesting and simple addition to the theorizing. But as you indicate, it would be good to see some evidence for that assertion.
By the same token, however, it strikes me that proof of assertions about family background, i.e. Cherokee, and movement, i.e. moving away from the group post 1795, would be a very hard thing to prove. I’m only saying that because I’m recognizing from my own family research how hard some of our family branches worked to obfuscate their Native roots. This is certainly true of my own direct line of Richardsons, though not true of the lines proceeding from my great-grandfather’s brothers. Before a certain point in a family history, there are little more than census and tax records and surmise on which to proceed. Unless one’s ancestors were either so famous, or infamous, as to have warranted inclusion into further documentary history, such as in newspaper accounts of crime (yikes!), how does one know how and why one’s family went here or there? I’m with you in asking how a Carlson arrives at his conclusions about his family’s roots and routes.
But then, as I said, I am really new to this whole realm of inquiry, and sadly, easily distracted by shiny objects, bits of dryer lint (metaphorically speaking) and interesting new hypotheses.
On another note, I am looking forward to examining the role of Christian evangelizing among the Native peoples in the NC/VA area on migrations and tribal and family affiliations. At what point does the appropriation of the Christian ethos transform, transpose or replace the former filial and tribal associations? What other factors affect the dissolution of the tribal and clan designations? Which comes first – the egg of the gospel or the chicken of cultural/political/economic changes arriving with European incursion and settlement? And at what point or series of points, and by what factors, does “a people” become “no people” (an interesting and ironic paraphrase of the biblical saying, eh?)?
Well, I probably ask questions that have answers that will remain clouded or unknown. But it will be intriguing and fun to pursue them for as far as is possible, assuming I will ever find the time to do so. Can’t wait to read the dissertation and start posing further questions. Perhaps from time to time you will be able to redirect my meandering mind with the benefits of your own research? I hope so.
Well, it’s now time to get cracking on other things.
Heidi
Heidi,
The more I read the more I I realize perhaps i should read the whole thing before commenting on it. Having said that . . . oh well . . . 🙂
As for “proof” of Cherokee heritage, there is “proof” and then there is “evidence”. Were it I who was speaking I’d hope to say “My family has a family story of some Cherokee ancestors” rather than simply say “I am Cherokee”. THAT is the nature of my pet peeve. Then I can go and gather evidence for those Cherokee ancestors. I can say we have “this” evidence and we have “this”the family story, but we have no proof. That evidence should include i.] known Cheroke surnames ii.] living where Cherokee were known to live iii.] during a time frame when Cherokee lived there.
Cherokee Christian missions started @ 1801, altho they had probably known about Christianity for a much longer timeframe. But all requests for a mission to the nation were denied by the tribal leaders before that date. There were probably very few Cherokee Christians before that date, living in the Cherokee nation. Perhaps spouses who left the nation became Christian, but that is probably just about all there were.
The author talks like he has an ancestor on the reservation rolls of 1818 or so but doesn’t exactly say it.
He does clarify some interesting things about the “Sizemore surname”. There were about 200 Sizemore’s on Guion Miller Cherokee rolls, and all were rejected. He says their family story is that they came from Eastern Virginia in the “swamp” originally and moved later to live with the Catawba. After this they went to SW Va, NE Tn, and adjacent Ky. To me this sure sounds like they may have been with the Saponi at Ft. Christinna, gone to live with the Catawba as did many Ft Christianna Saponi, then later to SW Va as did many also. He found htis information in their Guion Miller applications. He went through many Guion Miller applications and has a great deal of valuable information on this topic.
In 1900 census many people in his home county were called Indian-Cherokee (near Salyersville in E Ky) — yet for most there was no evidence of Cherokee (except his Coles and some Hales that he mentions), and some families were known Saponi.
I am not quite half way through the book. In my opinion, his is the best book on discovering the origin of the Melungeons I have ever read. I agree 100 percent with Occam’s razor scenario — simplest explanation is the most likely . . . These elaborate tales of Turkish slaves dumped off at the coast, or some Phoenecians who came to America 1500 years previously — well Atlantis seems more likely . . . 🙂 Unlikely explanations require exceptional proof, and such proofs don’t exist.
Vance
I finished the book. The bibliography is great. There are over 1600 references that he uses. I wish all unenrolled people could do what he has done do document their family. It might take more time than many of us have, tho.
He’s done an excellent job.
Vance
Hello Vance, thank you for this posts.
I feel asthough more people need to do the same, the wealth of information given should be enough to inspire several groups to do the same.
I believe that both Linda’s family aswell as Cindy’s followed a similar path as my families into the central Indian territory and on to Wisconsin and Iowa.
If these families ever knew each other we may never know!
I like to think that they did and perhaps in some old family photo album we’d find a group shot, rather odd but it could happen.
The fabric of American culture would be somewhat altered if people from native descent families did do what this author has done.
I have met my younger cousins and really knew nothing about who they are.!
Any way thanks once again for this.
Tom,
I firmly believe that there is enough evidence to believe that no only did they know each other, they were related. I have found a few Hardins in my genealogies and certainly, Linda’s aunt was married to a Potter. My gggrandmother was a Potter.
I recently read a page that was taken from an early Iowa missionary’s journal : http://iagenweb.org/history/annals/jan1907.htm . I found it interesting to speculate on this journal, as the author would have been traveling the territory at a time when the first of my groups would have been in Jackson County, IA. A couple of my names are there, Street, (I still think they must have borrowed the name from Joseph Street.), Edwards, and William Potter. Likely, the latter was my direct ggg grandfather who fought in the Revolution. (My family says that the Sinkeys brought in the Indian; my great aunt’s memoir says that the Sinkeys were dissed by her parents, as were the Potters, but the Potters were not as bad.) Linda, there is a Hudson mentioned.
It is interesting to try to interpret some of the things he mentions in this journal, i.e. why can the minister not speak of religion at one house in Farmer’s Creek, because it was unsafe? My people lived at Farmer’s Creek.
Thought you might find it interesting. Vance, if you read it, because of your church interest, it might be interesting for you to read.
Cindy
Thanks Cindy.
I noticed it mentioned Col. Henry Dodge. I have 2 relatives (Jarrett and James Wayland, who were brothers — and cousins to my direct ancestor Sarah Ann Wayland) who served with him in the early 1830s on an expedition from Ft. Gibson, I. T. to the Wichita Mountains in SW Ok where a treaty between the Kiowa, Comanche, and Osage (and others) was signed. Dodge City, Ks, was named after him.
Cindy, I recently saw a message on another site where someone was looking for ancestors surnamed “Sink”. Have you ever heard of htis surname? Is it associated with your “Sinkey” surname? This was on a Cherokee list.
Vance
Vance,
I do not know about Sink. I have seen the name in places where I have looked for my Sinkeys, i.e. the PA archives with the Rev War lists, census lists of the areas where the Senecas of the Sandusky were in Ohio in the mid-1800s. I have wondered, but I am not sure. The mystery is compounded by the fact that there was a Rev Richard Sankey living in PA where my folks lived. He left there in something like 1853 and went to Prince Edward County, VA. He and his father-in-law, John Thomson, seem to have been tied to early VA tribes. They were both well-known Presbyterian ministers, especially Thomsom, who bopped around in many of the places my people were and others on this forum, PA, WVA, VA, and NC.
After Sankey leaves PA, my Richard Sinkey appears in almost the same place. The name Sankey is intermixed with Sinkey in most genealogies, making the problem difficult. The genealogists in the family think that there were 4 brothers. My William went to OH; the rest stayed in PA. They kept Sankey while William took the Sinkey spelling.
We are doing a DNA test on Deb’s dad to see if they were Irish Sinkeys or Sinkeys who borrowed the name.
I have seen no Sinks in the Sinkey/Sankey mix, but I have wondered, because of the locations.
Thanks, Vance.
Cindy
Vance, Tom and Cindy,
I’ve been off the ‘net for a couple of days due to holiday travel, and came back to find your posts. A couple of things:
Vance: I appreciated your opening remark about reading the whole book before commenting on it. I like to think of myself as kind of a specialist in running off half-cocked and then thinking better of it later.
On the other hand, were it not for this tendency, my Richardsons would still exist only in my memory, mistakenly, as possibly of African American descent and without a clue about the Saponi connections. (My mother remonstrated me, at age 15, for telling our pastor that my grandma was a person of color – he was bragging about being so unprejudiced that if a black person were to attend our church, he would welcome them with open arms. I told him, “One already has.” Ooh, I was a real handful in confirmation class, I can tell you).
That said, Vance, your distinction between proof and evidence is MOST useful. Makes me wonder how often I have used/considered material with proof in mind when evidence was all that was available – or vice versa. Hmmm.
Of perhaps more significance, however, were your remarks about Salyersville and Cherokee designations, etc. I’m still having problems seeing some of this history in context. I need to get a map printed out and chart out some of the Saponi trajectories you all have been talking about on different threads. I swear that I cannot think without a picture. It feels like I have a lot of pieces of information from a lot of different sources that if I could just get into a picture, I would know what to ask and where to go to ask it.
By the same token, Cindy and Tom, I begin to wonder with you whether or not there are not more than a few points of contact in the various families that are just outside the reach of evidence at the moment. It’s fascinating to read your posts and see how many of your family histories cross timewise or geographically. Considering how much research you all have done, I’m still kind of stumbling – there’s SO MUCH I don’t know. May never know, given the fact that my folks NEVER left so much as a hint of family history or origins before my great grandfather, who was identified as French Canadian. NOT.
Cindy, one line of my family – the Daniels/Dannels – came from Slippery Rock, Mercer Co, PA to Jackson Co, IA in the 1840s. They stopped there, deposited a few members, and then went to SE KS, Wilson Co, to be exact. As far as I can see, they traipsed back and forth between the two states due to the “troubles in KS” well into the 1870s, my direct line finally settling in KS. For a while. As I recall (I’m not in the same town with my box o’ notes, so I can’t be more precise), they lived near Andrew. Considering God’s intense delight with irony (I wonder on which day of creation that appeared) , I figure they were the ones who ran off the Methodist minister (thanks for the link; it was delightful and informative). But seriously, I’ll have to look at some of the marriages in that group more closely to see if there are any crossings with your folks.
The Carlson piece is most satisfying. Wish I had more time to read. Seems like I read a few pages and then have to run off and do something to earn my daily bread. Then I have to re-read everything again. And still I wish for a map to help make sense of it.
Above all, however, I wish I could contribute more to this forum than lamentations over my ignorance, wry observations about the deity’s sense of humor, and gratitude for you all sharing your research and observations. I hope with time and effort to make more useful contribution to the confabulation. In the meantime, I hope you will be patient and know that I am indeed grateful I am for all your work and generous sharing.
Heidi
Heidi,
Given your information (I did find a Daniels on one of my lists, but it was circa 1952.), you might want to look for Ralstons. Slippery Rock is where they came from but in 1852. John Ralston, Jr. married a full-blood Eastern Blackfoot, Nancy Agnes McLane, and brought his many children to Iowa. They lived near Canton, although two return to Slippery Rock and stay there. I think they may have had a white mother. (BTW, it is interesting to note that the Seneca were once called the Canton Indians.) Other names are Potter (That article mentions William who must be my William Potter.), Sinkey, Green, Huston, Clark, Street(s), Smith, Butt(s), Edwards, Rhoads, Cooley, and others.
Other names that show up (and sometimes intermarry) when looking at my line include Van Meter (This family comes from the Van Meters of WVA via a son who was taken captive and married a – I think I am remembering this correctly – sister to Joseph Brandt. They were friends with my Greens in Ohio and move on to Kansas.), Cox, Fox, Hardin, French, Meeks, DeMoss, and others that I have not found in Iowa, but are in Ohio.
I have found information on the Jackson County genealogy sites, but also look at Jones County and Dubuque County. I don’t have those URLs here right now, but I found the reason at least one group came there from the Dubuque County site. You can find them by googling.
I played basketball as a kid in Andrew. It seems, according to the article, to have been an important town at the time. Kind of a sleepy, small Iowa town now.
Tech
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