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Mary Lou,
That’s why I get so flustered when I hear people say “there are no more full bloods”. There ARE full bloods and they are upset at the unenrolled mixed bloods who claim a heritage they were not raised in and that some of us have only read about.
We need to see things through their eyes to get them to try to see things through ours. That message board said it better than anyone could. I don’t know the solution, but I hope people will try to think about the problem more . . .
vance
Hi Vance,
I think you are correct! It takes looking thru other’s eyes to have more of a sense of what the other person goes thru. I have heard too that there are no 100% of any one nationality or race. Frustrating all around, isn’t it.
Hope all is well with you! 🙂
Mary Lou
I invite everyone to visit this link. This site has some awesome essays on race, color and ethnicty. It will be particularly enlightening with respect to some of our recent conversations here at Saponitown. An especially interesting article will be coming out in November on the being of the color line. I think it is of the utmost importance for any one claiming Southeastern American Indian descent to understand all of these issues. I’ll being posting a few more…
http://backintyme.com/publishing.htm
Essays on the Color Line and the One Drop-Rule
The “Race” Notion
The Paleo-Etiology of Human Skin Tone
Afro-European Genetic Admixture in the United States
The Heredity of “Racial” Traits
The Perception of “Racial” Traits
The Rate of Black-to-White “Passing”
The Color Line
Features of Today’s Endogamous Color Line
The Invention of the Color Line: 1691
Why Did Virginia’s Rulers Invent a Color Line? (due out November 2005)
How the Law Decided if You Were Black or White: The Early 1800s
Barbadian South Carolina: A Class-Based Color Line
Antebellum Louisiana and Alabama: Two Color Lines, Three Endogamous Groups
No Color Line in Spanish Florida
The Color Line Created African-American Ethnicity in the North
The One-Drop Rule
Features of Today’s One-Drop Rule
The Invention of the One-Drop Rule in the 1830s North
Why Did Northerners Invent a One-Drop Rule? (due out December 2005)
The Antebellum South Rejects the One-Drop Rule
The One-Drop Rule in the Postbellum North and Upper South (due out September 2005)
The One-Drop Rule Arrives in the Postbellum Lower South (due out October 2005)
Jim Crow Triumph of the One-Drop Rule
Why Did One-Drop Become Nationwide Tradition? (due out January 2006)
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News of Interest to Scholars of U.S. Racialism
Melungeon Conference Presentation, 30 Jul 2005
Melungeon Conference Trip Report, 02 Aug 2005
Carter Fold Music Festival Trip Report, 06 Aug 2005
As for the possible Catawba/Saponi/Cherokee connection, I took a trip to Alabama 2 years ago to learn more about the state recognized Cherokee in Alabama. I felt my family were closer to the Echota Band than the NE Al Band, largely because of where they lived. But the only people I met from the Echota Cherokee were surnamed “Riddle”, which I have never thought of as a Cherokee surname. This group was based in Walker, Winston, and Lawrence County in N Central Alabama, also probably near Decatur and Huntsville areas of Alabama. They say as there were Cheroke in NC after teh removal, there were also Cherokee on the Tennessee River living in lands ceeded from about 1806 to 1818 or so. I looked at other surnames and I recall some more common to Eastern Siouan than Cherokee. “Warrior Mountain Folklore” byRicky (Butch) Walker mentions some of those surnames. It is printed by Lawrence County Schools Indian Education Program, PO Box 365, Moulton, Alabama 35650. My people in Alabama can be traced to Lawrence Co., Al. There is a second book I forget the name, “Sipsey Wilderness . . . something” by Jim Manusco.
I have many of “my” Riddles who moved to Walker County, Alabama. After leaving NC and VA for Bledsoe County, TN and Hawkins County, TN, some moved to Walker County, AL and some to Pulaski County, MO. Some even left MO and moved to Walker County, AL….I don’t know why, but they did.
So I have a huge group of cousins in AL and I don’t think they even know how they got there…:D
Now, for some reason my family always claimed to be Cherokee (my g-grandpa spoke fluent Cherokee), but from what I have found they were Melungeons. In fact, they lived at Portuguese Point…for the life of me I can’t figure out where the name came from unless they brought it with them from TN.
Maybe some Cherokee snuck in somewhere, but where I don’t know. Maybe these AL Riddle’s just don’t realize they are Melungeons too.
So if your ggrandfather spoke Cherokee, did you have the story of Blackfoot in your family? My family says that they were Cherokee Blackfoot, but the location seems to be wrong for this.
And Riddles lived near them in PA.
Techteach
Well, I have gotten my Riddles directly back to William and Moses Riddle, so no, I don’t see a connection with anyone in PA.
I never heard anything about Blackfoot. All I have heard is that we were Indian and that we were Cherokee.
William Riddle, however, is said to have been a Melungeon. Plus, all of these Riddles and Johnsons lived in Hawkins Co, TN, which helps corroborate the story a bit. Therefore, I assume the Cherokee is either wrong or that one of the women who married into the family were Cherokee.
Those women would be:
Sarah Johnson b. 1775 Surry Co, NC (lived in Hawkins Co, TN) – wife of John Riddle b. 1775
Malinda West b. 1819 TN (probably in Bledsoe or Hawkins County) – wife of Emanuel Riddle b. 1810 Bledsoe Co, TN
Lucinda Bench b. 1847 Pulaski Co, MO – wife of Andrew Jackson Riddle b. 1841
I always wondered how a Cherokee could be named after Andrew Jackson just years after the Trail of Tears.:rolleyes:
Yeah, my thought too.
Thanks for the info. It really is helpful. I find so many of the names on this forum appearing on the Rev War muster list of my Sinkey ancestor, including Riddle.
Techteach
To Rockhound –
I was poking around the forum and came across this thread. Seeing your ancestor with the last name of Bench made me think of something. I have seen “Bench” used as a variation of the surname “Benge” in a few places before. Sorry, I can’t point you to any specific reference at the moment, but seems like I’ve even seen references to the famous Bob Benge as “The Bench”, rather than The Benge. Could be some Benges actually used this variant spelling. Maybe?
Anyway, I thought it might be worth investigating if you feel there’s a “mystery Cherokee” in your lineage.
Randall
Thanks for the tip.
I have considered looking into the Bench side. Lucinda Bench (who married into the Riddles) looks every bit of a full blood Indian. I stumbled across someone who did the complete genealogy on the Bench side, going back to Daniel Bench in NC in the late 1700s. There is no mention of Indian in any text I can find, but looking at her picture, there is no question. I have tried contacting the person that posted the family tree, but they can’t be found.
In addition, one of that Benge group was called Riddle Benge, which is probably why Mr. Mooney told my mom that is where our group ties in (I haven’t seen any proof of this myself yet).
Somewhere in my research I learned that Cherokee families came up the mountains to visit Monacan families on the Blue Ridge. The Appalachian chain of mountains and valleys as we well know was used for thousands of years for travel…
Somewhere in Shiflet history somebody married Lydia Chocahy. Apparently she was hard to understand from an English speaker’s perspective. What do you bet she was Cherokee and trying to tell her husband’s family that? This was in the 19th century somewhere between Crozet and Charlottesville.
There aren’t any Shiflets or Bruces that I’m related to on any rolls any where. But I can’t keep living like this. I’ve made community with the Mdewankantun Mendota Dakota out here in Minnesota—another very small Dakota [Siouxan] family. They understand my broken bloodlines and I understand theirs. You can see the skyline of St. Paul, clearly, across the Minnesota River from the little town of Mendota. We’re here—there’s no doubt about it. But I’m never going to be able to prove it—and my friends don’t care.
I’ll keep doing the paperwork—mostly for niece and nephews, but it’s the hugs and smiles from Sharon, Beverly, Michael, Wally and the others that keep me going.:)
The prose of that post was very intense. I really ‘saw’ you, where you are, and where you’re coming from. Thanks
clen99,
I live near the Prairie Island Mdewankantun reservation (Red Wing), and have been blessed to go to school and work with many of the Mdewankantun here, they are a good family to belong to. I also know what is is like to not know your roots and the struggle to find them. I hope that you will persevere, because the answers are there, we just need to find them. This is an excellent forum in which to do just that!
Shirley
All,
After seeing the “joepayne.org” link, I saw the name “Branham” and remembered it from my research of my Clay line, Elswick Branham Clay to be exact. I had rememberd that E.B. Clay’s middle name was from an earlier generation. I did a quick search on the LDS site (not having my notes here at work) and found Zilphia Akers’ (E. B. Clay’s mother) mother was possibly Francis Branham from Virginia. No info on her but her spouse is shown as Valentine Akers b. 1763. I’d also found this article on Monacan Nation.
http://www.monacannation.com/history.shtml
and saw the name Branham in it. Here’s the excerpt from that article:
“In 1850, the census recorded 29 families, mostly large, related to the Bear Mountain settlement and Monacan community. In 1856, Will Johns divided his lands among his sons and daughter. Five years later, at the age of 91, he died. In 1860, the Amherst County Clerk’s Office recorded, among the names of free persons of color, the Monacan surnames of Beverly, Branham, Johns, Pinn and Terry.”
This post may be better suited in the Genealogy section but it fits the Monacan Families and Surnames thread.
Jim
You know Felicia’s maiden name is Clay. I’m trying to drag her out to the campout/gathering. You two need to talk.
Linda,
Thanks for that info. I’ll email her privately as the forum would probably not be the place for that discussion. Although your article on Bacon’s Rebellion caught my eye because one Clay ancestor in my direct line, Charles Clay, was involved in the Rebellion. He was not hanged as some were but only charged with stealing and killing a few cattle and fined. But this too is another thread! Thanks again for the info.
Jim
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