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I don’t get why this guy is persecuting those people. I see some names that are pretty basic VA Siouan, Hicks, Evans, Guy. Why does he feel he needs to be policing other people’s ancestry? So what if there are some Cherokee names and marriages?
Hicks and Evans are also Cherokee surnames.
But I agree with you — so what? I’d wager better than 99 percent of most people will ALL Indian surnames are Caucasian or Black. That is why we need to go further than just associate surnames to tribes. We must include timeframes and locations. So if these Hicks/Evans are in Virginia, they re not Cherokee, as the Cherokee never migrated up there. Some definitely visited Virginia, but if they moved up there, it was in marriage or perhaps a single family here and there — no lost Cherokee or Chickamauga bands.
Also the presence of several Saponi surnames in one family decreases that 99 plus percent figure and that decrease can be measured using probability theory.
So to say your ancestor was a Hicks, by itself, shows virtually nothing. But to know your Hicks ancestor was on the NC/Va border in 1740 when there might have been Saponi there means a great dal more. Still there might be 5 or 10 Hicks families there and just one or 2 Indian Hicks families, but we have narrowed it down from 99 plus percent probability the Hicks is White to maybe 80 percent probability they are white.
If you include family photos, stories, other family surnames, and migration patterns (ie — migrating where those same Indian Hicks, or the tribe of those Hicks, were known to have migrated), and odds of your “Hicks” being Indian increase from 20 percent upward. Five sets of 80 percent probability of a white ancestor, all other factors not changing, yields 0.8*0.8*0.8*0.8*0.8 will change that from 4/5th probability your ancestor is White to about 2/3rds probabity your ancestor IS Indian. There are factors that might make this an oversimplification, but I am tyring to simplify it.
Vance
Linda,
In reading that I wondered the same thing. Why is he policing other people’s ancestry?
It seems like if a Cherokee family wants to take issue with a family member or members being on a Monocan roll or any other roll..that’s up to them.
But anyways,
Vance has the good point of us being able to pinpoint who was in the piedmont area in the 1740ish timeframe to see the relations. I don’t know how to go about it exactly. And I thought the maps were crucial for everyone to understand where the areas were.
Sue J
Excerpts From
“The Buffalo Ridge Cherokees: Remnants of a Great Nation Divided”
Writen by Dr. Horace Rice, PhD: Heritage Press
by Anita Wills
Copyright ©1998-1999 by Anita Wills. Reprints require approval by the author.
This article touches on a topic that seems to be a sore point for many Americans. It is the topic of the relationship between Africans and Native Americans. Many of us who are researching run into walls which we cannot get past. In order to break down the wall we have to follow the trail, no matter where it goes. If you cannot find your ancestors listed as black you may need to be looking for them in the “Mulatto” or “Indian” category. I found myself stuck many times when looking for my ancestors under the black designation.
I found out that some states had a “Black”, “mulatto” and “White” designation. The “M” designation was used to designate Indians (or mixed race). To anyone who has heard of the United States Colored Troops and believe that “colored” designated only blacks, that is incorrect. “Colored” was a term used to designate anyone who was not white. Many Native Americans participated in the Civil War on the Union side and they served in the United States Colored Troops. The key that I used to get past the block was to look for the name first then the racial designation. In fact the racial designation was the last information I looked for since many of my relatives listed themselves as white. The information in this article should be helpful to those who run into walls. The article is about a Tribe in Amherst County who call themselves “The Buffalo Ridge Cherokees”.
Cherokees In Amherst County Virginia:
The Cherokee language belongs to the Iroquian linguistic group. It is believed that, during some prehistoric time period, they lived in the Great Lakes region. This belief is based on numerous generations of Delaware Indian historians who passed on the oral tradition of their ancestors to their descendants whenever they had the opportunity in the northern woodlands 1(Terrell, 1971, 131). The tradition states that the powerful Delaware, whose ancient homeland was in New Jersey, Eastern Pennsylvania, and New York, fought the Cherokees over a period of the reign of three Chieftains before the Delaware’s could finally claim victory (p. 10). Amherst, Nelson, Rockbridge and Augusta County were thought to be hunting grounds for the Cherokee.
Amherst County is located in Central Virginia along the Blue Ridge Mountains. “Amherst is the Genius of the Old Dominion, a living, real, everlasting representative of the State, to be seen and known of all men. Look at her, the great Giantess, sitting upon the highest portion of Central Virginia, with her back against the Blue Ridge, and her feet dabbling in the noble James (River). Mount Pleasant her head, lifted 4,090 feet in the air, the Tobacco Row her fruitful breast: The Ridge, her knees holding under them a wealth of minerals; the upper James her strong right arm,… 2″(Blankenship, R.B., 1907, 15).
At one time in their exciting history, the Cherokee were a powerful and great Nation. They possessed 135,000 square miles of area that covered eight states: North Carolina, Georgia, South Carolina, Alabama, Tennessee, Kentucky, West Virginia, and Virginia (Blankenship, B., Cherokee Roots, 1978, 5). This tribe, one of the largest in the Southeastern section of the United States, was the first to adapt to the arrival and civilization of the Europeans. In 1540, when Hernando De Soto explored the area of the Cherokee, he discovered that they had an advanced society in their capital city, Echota (itsati), near the modern city of Madisonville, Tennessee3 (Yenne, 1986, 35).
According to tradition, the Allegeni, the ancestors of the modern Cherokee, were defeated by the Delaware-Iroquois alliance and moved into Virginia. The settled in New Holston Valley after residing for a period of time at the Peaks of Otter in Bedford County 4(Johnson, 34). In just twenty years, from 1880 to 1900, the Indians in Amherst County were systematically erased from the record books by the stroke of a pen. They were forced by law in 1705 to be called “mulatto” and then called “black” in 1900. Many of the Cherokee descendants of Amherst County accepted this term without resistance. In fact, by 1850, as “Free Inhabitants” of Amherst County, the Cherokee families lived in the communities with blacks and whites and many of the families “went” for black or white, depending on the racial community in which they lived and felt secure ( p. 37).
Some of the Cherokee residents went in the Stapleton area “went for black” even though they knew that their major ancestry was Indian, Indian/white, Indian/black or Indian/white/black. The census enumerators classified some of them as black or colored, so many of them “went for black or colored.” They attended the colored school, Fairmount, on Buffalo Ridge in the Stapleton area, even though a number of them were full, three-quarter, or half blood Cherokee. Directly across the James River, in the Stonewall Mill area of Appomattox, near Turner Mountain, however, some of their bi-racial or tri-racial Cherokee relatives went to school with children of white residents, even though they themselves chose to be considered as colored in the community5 (John Ferguson, 1991).
“During the mid-1700’s a band, or tribe of disenfranchised “Mulattos” began moving from the Eastern Shore of Virginia and headed for the Mountains (Matoe) of Central Virginia seeking a place where they could keep their culture alive. The band was composed of various racial groupings, Indian, Indian/black, Indian/white or Indian/white/black. The surnames included such names as Pinn, Beverly, Sizemore, Evans, Branham, Redcross, Hartless, Carter, Coleman, Johns, Harris and Sparrow. It is believed that this group was headed for the Mountains, a place where their ancestors often hunted Buffalo, they called their settlement “Buffalo Ridge”. The Native Americans viewed the Buffalo as a spiritual animal, whose coat they wore in battle and whose meat sustained them. The group that settled on the Ridge served in the Revolutionary War as Patriots and eventually became wealthy land owners. They were not unlike the Creoles in Louisiana, as most had never been slaves (Wills, Anita).
During the early to mid-1800’s, the families started clustering together in geographical and/or religious groups. “Pinn Park”, one of the first official church/tribal burial grounds in Amherst County, is believed to have been an interment site as far back as 1750 (Land Survey of Fairmount Baptist Church/ “Pinn Park Cherokee Grounds, Amherst County”). By the 1840s, Turner Pinn, Samuel Scott, Madison Beverly, Anthony Beverly, Bartlett Sparrow, Polly Beverly, George Jewell, and others were living in the same tribal setting (clustered together in a residential clan connection) and listed as “Free Colored” individuals (U.S. Census, Amherst County, 1840).
It was only later that white settlers began to purchase land from these Native Americans and build dwellings between them. Census records show these families clustered together in 1840 and earlier. The later census records show a progressively larger number of non-family members settling in these previously “closed” areas. They were prosperous farmers on the Ridge…, (p 64). Contrary to the common belief that all Negroes and other free coloreds, or Indians, were slaves in Virginia prior to the 6end of the Civil War, there were in fact a large number of “Free Colored” inhabitants in Amherst County (McLeroy & McLeroy, 1977, 52). Free colored inhabitants comprised approximately two to three percent of the county’s population between 1810 and 1860. It is believed that the major portion of these residents were, in fact, Native Americans. While some of the free colored persons were former or freed slaves, the other residents were Native Americans, descendants of full or mixed blood ancestors. The children of Native American mothers were born free while the children of slave and Native American fathers were not free because the children usually lived with their mothers. If their mothers were in included in the institution of slavery, they were born in bondage. This fact partly accounted for the large number of slaves that had Native American features.
Remnants of this group still reside on the mountain today, although most leave for better opportunities. They are members of the Keetowah band of Cherokees who meet in Tennessee once a year. The Cherokees were able to prosper by keeping family ties strong. Within this band if you are a cousin, you are welcome, they believe that “Blood Is Thicker Then Water”. The ties are now cultural as very few pure blood Native Americans are left. Some of the Ridge Natives attended Howard, Hampton and other of the “colored” schools in Virginia. Those who were educated did not forget those who stayed on the ridge. The Buffalo Ridge Cherokees do not deny that they are intermixed with blacks or whites, however, they are determined to keep their Indian heritage alive. Many still speak in the old language and pass it on to their children. They are a proud but friendly people- They are “The People Who Came Before Columbus”.
____________________________________
1Terrell, John Upton: American Indian Almanac: New York: Thomas Y. Crowell Company, 1971
2Blankenship, Bob: Cherokee Roots: Cherokee North Carolina, 1978
3Yenne, Bill: The Encyclopedia of North American Indian Tribes: Greenwich, Connecticut: Arch Cape Press, 1986.
4Johnson, Patricia Givens: The New River Early Settlement: Pulaski, Virginia: Edmonds Printing, Inc., 1983
5Ferguson, John. Interview. Lynchburg, Virginia, January 7, 1992.
6McLeroy, Sherrie and William: Strangers In Their Midst: The Free Black Population of Amhert County Virginia: Bowie Maryland: Heritage Books, Inc., 1993
Perhaps the last paragraph of this posting will explain why ‘the battle’ became so contentious.
A century later, armed with the awesome power of the state, Plecker declared war on these people. Consulting a listing of surnames associated with Native American ancestry– such as Beverly (from beaver), Sparrow, Penn or Pinn, Fields, Bear, and so on–and drawing his authority from century-old census records that were likely to list Indians as “mulattoes”–particularly if the census were taken in summertime, Houck notes– Plecker embarked on a crusade to re-classify every Native American in the state as an African-American.
Plecker intimidated mid-wives, wrote threatening pamphlets, editorialized in newspapers, and trained an entire generation of county clerks and health service workers in his methods. When all else failed, he simply changed records to suit his prejudices, striking out the designation “Indian” and replacing it with “Negro” or “colored” or “mulatto”–or writing notations on the back.
But while Powhatans suffered under Plecker’s tyranny, they refused to vanish. When necessary, they sacrificed both family ties and good will in the African-American community by refusing to attend Jim Crow schools or segregated churches.
These isolationist tactics cost them–Indian communities in Amherst were often poor and poorly educated–but they appear to have worked. It is worth noting that Amherst Indians who successfully held themselves aloof from “black contamination” regained tribal recognition in the 1980s. Another group, also living in Amherst County, which proudly claimed African, Native, and Caucasian ancestry–the Buffalo Ridge Cherokee–did not.
Google 1924 Virginia Racial Integrity Law to read full text…
The Cherokee have always said that their ancestors came from the South, not the North. Also linguists have said the Cherokee probably split from the Iriquois @ 3,000 years ago. I wish I knew where I read that. I’ll try and find it again. It is possible that both were once on the Mississippi River, with the Iriquois emigrating up the Ohio River and the Cherokee emigrated down the Tennessee River, long, long ago. I have heard the Cherokee call the Lenape the “Grandfathers” with the implication being that the Lenape ancestors predated the Cherokee in that region.
The Cherokee I know of today will also tell you that the “Buffalo Ridge Cherokee” are not, nor have they ever been “Cherokee”. That area may well have been Cherokee hunting grounds once, but it was not a permanent residence for Cherokee.
Indian people had lands on which they lived, and other lands they seasonally visited called “hunting grounds” which the tribe considered as theirs, but on which they had no permanent home. This is what bothers me about the Virginia tribes — they seemed to live in ALL of Virginia. Why are all other tribes in America different from those in Virginia regarding this? Where are the hunting grounds of the Virginia tribes? They don’t have any that are separate from their homes. To me this means a lot of stress on the population and probably meant constant warfare amongst each other in an effort to obtain permanent hunting grounds. I’ll bet the populations were already under stress when the first Europeans arrived.
With the Cherokee and Shawnee claiming lands west of and in the Mountains, the Tuscarora and Catawba claiming lands in the South and the Delaware and Iriquois and Susquehanna claiming hunting grounds to the north, the Virginia-Siouan and Virginia-Algonquin peoples were squeezed together, much too close for comfort, like the Israelis and Palestinians are today. I can’t help but think early European accounts are not accurate, and what they call “tribes” were really allied “bands” of 2 loosely confederated tribes, one Siouan and one Algonquin, and each was in a life and death struggle for existence against the other. Well, I could be wrong . . .
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Thanks for the reference to “The Buffalo Ridge Cherokees: Remnants of a Great Nation Divided” Writen by Dr. Horace Rice, PhD: Heritage Press. I’d like to read it. Did he ever interview any Cherokee in Oklahoma or North Carolina and ask them what they thought about the Buffalo Ridge Indians being Cherokee? I would be very much interested in knowing what they had to say to him.
This is interesting. 🙂
Vance
Quick note: I have no idea if the Buffalo Ridge Cherokee ever spoke to any of the Big Three or the Big Two. However, their assertions of Cherokee blood is no different than anyone else claiming blackfoot, cherokee, apache, metis (US) what have you. I doubt very seriously if any of the other tribes are asking permission to call themselves blackfoot, apache, metis — it’s their oral tradition or what they believe. Isn’t that the hypothesis being put forth here on Saponitown?
I am not for or against Buffalo Ridge Cherokee’s claim. I am sure you know that the Federal Cherokee do not claim the Appalachian Band of the West Virginia Cherokee, the Indiana Cherokee, NY, Alabama, Georgia, fill in any state Cherokee unless they are Ketowah, Eastern Band or Western Band. As for tribes having traditional hunting grounds perhaps Virginia’s story is different because of early contact. I really can’t tell you–never thought much about it. Our history by the late 1600 and early 1700 is contact–contact with the colonials–trade with the colonials. However, we had many trading paths…you don’t need a path, if you have nothing to trade…so obviously we hunted, traded and ‘moved camp.’ Our ancestors lived variously in VA/NC/SC. As an aside the Monacan were also referred to as the ‘digging stick’ indians or something close–why? They farmed. The colonials marveled at our ‘old fields and farm lands in the piedmont as well.’ Don’t forget by the time we were actuallly being written about–some tribes or families groups, clans or whatever were somewhat acculturated.
BTW did you know that General Joseph Martin, married Nancy Ward’s daughter–he was an Indian Agent–lived in Henry County, next door to Pittsylvania County. Lastly, the Catawba and Cherokee sold eachother as indian slaves… I know for a fact Catawba were sold as slaves in Virginia. Cherokee came to Brafferton at William and Mary. In fact, here’s one for you–Choctaw and Chickasaw apparently were here in little old Virginny as well. This is precisely why I would like people to study VA/SC/NC. There is still so much to be uncovered.
I am not making a case for the Buffalo Ridge Cherokee–however I do believe Cherokee blood could as easily be in Virginia as any other place….
I am fairly new to studing Virginia history. I could be wrong, but aren’t the people called “Buffalo Ridge Cherokee” the peope that have turned out to be the Monacan instead? I just received a book in the mail entitled “Monacans and Miners” by Samuel B Cook, University of Nebraska Press — I ordered it after you graciously helped me with the Woods/Hamilton surnames.
I have noticed all my life when I argue with someone, that is when I learn. So please do not consider this bantering back and forth as anything but an effort to learn. I know in college I always respected teachers who allowed you to argue with them more than those who clammed up and got upset at it. Please consider this as done in respect, and not malice.
I have read 30 or 40 pages or “Monacans and Miners” and I believe he said the Monacan were called Cherokee, Colored, Free Persons of Color, Mulattos (not necessarily in that order), and several other terms before in recent years they have been called Monacan, which is probably what they were all along.
I can not speak for The Cherokee Nation’s official policy, but I can give my interpretation of it. It is very legalistic. They are happy to admit many Cherokee are not eligible for Tribal membership who have Cherokee blood. What they will disagree with is any group has the right to federal recognition because guidelines for that recognition require the people to have not abandoned some form of tribal government and to have had previously recorded talks on a govenment to gvernment level with the possible result of a treaty recognition in the past. It requires a continually recorded line of descent from one generation to the next, proof a government has continued to exist leading these people. That is why state recognition came to the forefront, because the Federal government wll never regognize some groups because the BIAs rigid standards and guidelines will prevent it.
At least this is my understanding of the BIA — this is on the BIAs website. There is a website called Cherokee elders I believe where they do talk about tribes that are not federally recognized. I’ll try and find it.
There are so many groups that abuse the name Cherokee. Individual, self-appointed guru’s does not a chief make. Some groups seem more like a cult of malcontents that would be just at home in one of Timothy McVay’s militia group’s or David Koresh’s cult of nuts, as they are a “real” tribe. I had been in contact with some of them in the past can testify to the validity of this statement from personal experience — I finally thought “some of these people are real cases” and for years I avoided such groups. One group “says Cherokees are Jews (Tennessee River Band of Chickamauga) another I was told since I wanted to contact officials of the Cherokee Nation in Tahlequah I would be denied membership — I could go on and on . . . this dsame group had an electio and when this leader lost it she separated from the other group and went on as tho this were nothing. This group is based in Mo and Ar and have since splintered into half a dozen groups.
Then I ran into Saponitown where real emperical evidence is used as criteria and started thinking “Why don’t these luney Chickamauga/Cherokee groups use such criteria?” Yall were my inspiration as to how to do it the right way. I started a yahoo group called “Chickamauga Researcher” as a result and we research the Cherokee with the same fervor as a result.
We’ve found the Chgerokee in Ohio as late as 1794 but they agreed to return to their native lands after the corn harvest. Greenville treaty (listed in American State Papers, Indian Affairs, vol. 1). The treaty does not mention the Cherokee were involved at all, but the above mentioned cocumetn says they were on the Scioto River. A census of the Six Nations mentions 54 Creek and Cherokee in 1785, but this could have been a grup of visitors. Cherokee even emigrated to Mexico about the time of the Texas War to break from Mexico.
One interesting document I’d like to follow up on was in Pat Elder’s Melungeon book. She says outlaw Cherokee were ordered outside the Cherokee homeland. That is the only indication I have seen where the Cherokee tehmselves speak of any Cherokee outside the nation, except as I said earlier of individual families leaving, or leaving to be with a White husband or wife.
Vance
Vance I have got to go to work but basically the Buffalo Ridge Cherokee and the Monacan are possibly the same people as they share many common surnames. However, the Monacan have said they are not the same people and that the Monacan were already in Amherst etc, and that they Buffalo Ridge came from somewhere else. Yadayada yada. However the Monacan did at once say they were Cherokee as did many other groups. Even the Person County Indians and the Lumbee on and on. One theory is a delegation of Cherokee stopped off in Virginia on their way to Washington. Honestly, I don’t have a stake in this particular dog fight. I presented the sources as information and food for thought. Take Care. I’ll e-mail you with the names of a few other books on this topic.
Saponi1
From p.88 & 89, “Monacans and Miners”, by Samuel R. Cook, c.2000, Univ of Nebraska Press:
“At the turn of the twentieth century, the Monacan Indians had long vanished in the eyes of their non-Indian neighbors. However, the growing national fascination with Indians as the exotic “other” did manage to diffuse into the county when, in 1896, Captain Edgar Whitehead wrote an article for a Richmond newspaper describing the Amherst Indians as descendants of Cherokees. Although the historical accuracy of this lengthy article is questionable (indeed, Whitehead’s link to the Cherokees seems embellished, if not fabricated), it marked the first time that anyone had acknowledged – at least in print – that the Monacans were Indians.”
It also appears that Whitehead did not ask these people who THEY thought they were, nor does it appear that he had any knowledge of any other Indian people living in Virginia.
In the forward of Horace Rice’s “The Buffalo Ridge Cherokee:…”
he states that he found evidence they were living there in the very early 1700s. I get the impression they were only misidentified by white people.
I am going to print this out and look through it more carefully. My Sizemore name is mentioned and part of my confusion is that he said he was raised in a Catawba settlement, but he seems to have lived and migrated in Saponi areas. Some people think he is mulungeon, some Saponi, and some Cherokee. Your conversation here is helping me – thanks, cheryl
I didn’t know the Buffalo Ridge Cherokee and Monacans of Amherst County were 2 different groups. I just thought tehy were one and the same. My appologies. Where is this “Buffalo Ridge” located? Maybe that is another book I need to read. There is a story that the Cherokee killed most of the Euchee that were on the Tennessee River, but maybe not all. Some said some of the Euchee escaped after living with the Cherokee a while and they were in NE Tn and SW Va. Other Euchee fled to the Creek where they live to this day. They do not correspond with the Melungeons ’cause the Melungeons can be traced to the East, not the South, which is where the Euchee would have come from. Maybe the “Buffalo Ridge Cherokee” were these lost Euchee/Yuchi, if they are a separate group from the Monacan, and f some Euchee did succeed in fleeing from the Cherokee. But as far as I know there is no proof these Euchee that supposedly escaped actually did escape, to the best of my knowledge.
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The Cherokee sided with the colony of Virginia in the French and Indian War. In the 1750s some Cherokee, maybe 200, did pass through Western Maryland and Virginia on their way back to the Cherokee Nation after some major battle in that conflict.
They had helped George Washington in the French and Indian War, I believe they were to be paid by the governor of Virginia, but he renigged. On their way home they were treated badly and if memory serves me right their horses were stolen, and they promptly stole something in return or maybe raided a few farms — I forget what it was. Anyhow, before they got home there was a lot of bad blood between the Cherokee and the Virginia colonists.
If there is any documentation that a band of Cherokees did stay in Western Virginia, I’d love to see it.
Vance
I think they are the same. In 1896, Whitehead alledged the Indians living in the Tobacco Mtns (Buffalo Ridge and Bear Mtn) of Amherst County were Cherokee. He did not have any proof nor offer any information as to how he arrived at his assertion. I think this persisted as other people picked his “Cherokee” stuff up and used it as their source.
This is really ironic that we would question anyone’s self identification as Cherokee. It is the EXACT same thing as those who claim Blackfoot, Sioux, Apache, Melungeon etc. There is as much empirical evidence to support anyone’s claim as the next. How many people are on the net searching for Cherokee ancestors? We don’t even have to answer that. In terms of geography, location, surnames, etc. The Cherokee are a lot closer in proximity than some of the other tribes or theories. Lastly, I am not sure a band of Cherokee had to remain in Virginia for the Buffalo Ridge or any other band of people to put forth a claim of this ancestry or that. Please keep in mind contact–most of the tribes were already trading with colonials and living amongst them, and the Cherokee were already quite assimiliated. Again I don’t have a stake in the Buffalo Ridge Cherokee’s identity one way or the other. The salient point in the whole debate is one group received recognition for denying any relationship to the group with ‘black ancestry’ even though they shared common names.
Thanks for the civilized and well thought out discourse.
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