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Do you know if there are documents that they signed, evidencing they were literate? Is it oral history that the father or maybe grandfather, Joseph was at Mr. Griffin’s school? I believe that was in the 1720s. Although, let’s see, it would more likely be men at least in their forties getting land grants, I would think, so that would put the brothers’ births in the 1740s, so if Joseph was in his thirties when they were born, that would make him the right age for Mr. Griffin’s school.
Thanks for sharing that information.
I have transcribed copies of Joseph’s varoius land aquisitions and sales from 1741-1742 in Northampton County, NC. In 1745 he moved to Edgecombe County, NC he aquired and sold land there until 1752. It was oral tradition that I was told Joseph was literate, but I figured his land negotiations re-affirmed that.
Definitely. That’s quite an adaptation in one generation. That must have been one heck of a lifetime. How much land was he living on? Was he farming?
Most of the stories I’ve heard about men of color who acquired their own land in those times, there was a white father in the background. Was there any hint of that with him?
Joseph had 400 acres in Northampton County, NC and over 400+ acres in Edgecombe County, NC. He was listed as a planter. Through oral tradition I was always told of 2 brothers that came from England that settled in NC and married Indian women. I haven’t found any evidence of that yet. Benjamin just claimed to be Saponi, nothing mentioned of white blood from him.
In what context did Benjamin identify himself as Saponi? Maybe he was moreso than his father, if his mother was also Saponi, and his dad was half.
Howard,
Are your families from Northampton County, NC? I see you are in Norfolk, I am in Chesapeake and my lines are from Gaston, Roanoke Rapids, Enfield areas of Halifax and Northampton. Would be interested in talking with you.
My family is from Hollister, NC. They migrated from Fort Christianna, VA in the early 1700’s to Northampton, NC in 1741-45. To Edgecombe in 1745-1752. Then to Halifax County, NC in 1780-82. They have been in Halifax County. NC since 1782. My great-great grandfather Reese Richardson was born in Halifax County, NC but lived in Louisburg,NC and in Bethlehem,NC in Warren County. He donated the land for what was later the Haliwa-Saponi Indian school in Bethlehem. My great grandfather Nick Sr. lived in Warren County,NC and moved back to Hollister in the late 1890’s were my grandfather and my mother grew up. The church my mother and father attend is Pine Chapel, in Hollister, NC. My great grandfather helped to build the original church, and my grandfather helped to build the fellowship hall and classrooms. I do live in Norfolk and you can e-mail me at howardu9798@hotmail.com. I’ll be happy to share whatever information that I have.
Linda and Crystal:
Well my evidence for the Shawnee calling themselves Blackfoot is pretty slim. Try as I could, I looked both online and throughout the house, until my husband made a comment about the time I was taking. The best I can come up with is the following URL for Black Hoof being known as Black Foot http://www.heritagepursuit.com/Seneca/SenChapII.htm . I did find Ohio towns named after their chiefs and a reference to “Black Hoof’s Shawnees”, but, while I am sure I remembered an article mentioned in a digital library history document online, I can neither find it in the house printed nor online. I do not appear to have bookmarked it either. Frustrating as it is to have egg on my face here in this online forum, it is more frustrating because I spent so much time trying to find out why my ggggrandmother called herself blackfoot, and that document caused me to quit looking, because it satified me.
The URL with the treaty name, Crystal, is http://digital.library.okstate.edu/kappler/Vol2/treaties/sen0383.htm. That, too, may leave me with egg on my face.
With regards to the Shawnee/Blackfoot connection, perhaps Blackfoot was a derogatory term given by outsiders that stuck. I, too, have an oral family history of being many things– one, being Shawnee/Blackfoot… another, being Tuckahoe… another, being Cherokee. I’ve come to the conclusion that my ancestors were “something else” first– a smaller, less protected tribe… that moved to be absorbed into the larger, better-protected Cherokee.
TuckahoePrincess
I know that the Greenville Treaty of 1795 was signed by a member of the Shawnee and in parenthesis it is written Black Hoof. This may be a good lead for us to follow. Considering the migration patterns that we already know of and the traceable piedmont names, it may be part of this group of the “Tutelo” that was absorbed by the Cayuga in latter yrs. I’ll go get the treaty out of my car in the morning and post it.
Howard,
One side of the family I have yet to trace is my Walker and Paschall lines. Both from Warren County. What do you know regarding the lineage of the Haliwa and related names? I know they were both Native lines. Again, too much of the family lores and that look that we all seem to have. hehe…Linda, you know what I ‘m gapping about. For those of you that don’t, Barry and I could go for brother/sister. LOL
Well, I still can’t find the Web site that I found last fall about Black Hoof/Blackfoot, but I did find in the biography I am reading that Black Hoof, as principle chief of the Shawnee, established his capital town at Wapakoneta, Ohio but called his town, Black Hoof’s Town. The name Black Hoof/Foot chose for his town was contrary to Shawnee custom which would have named it after his Shawnee sept, Chalahgawtha. Black Hoof and his Shawnees did not follow Tecumseh, splitting the Shawnee who had not yet gone across the Mississippi into those that followed Tecumseh and those that followed Black Hoof.
When I first started to investigate what the Blackfoot ID could possibly mean, I wondered if our family had garbled Blackhoof into Blackfoot. I got excited about it when I learned that he had a few things in common with some people in our family and wrote a page about it I put online, just there for family, not publicly published, but maybe the search engines somehow found it and you came across it. Maybe I’m the unwitting source of that info. I’m not surprised you can’t find anything now, because I looked myself and never found any leads in that direction.
At this point, I’ve heard from hundreds of families with the Blackfoot ID and found a distinct pattern in surnames and locations that coincides with Eastern Siouan of the VA/NC Piedmont. There are some families with a tradition of being Blackfoot Cherokee. The evidence there is of an intermarriage of the Eastern Siouan and Cherokee families. I would think that an ID of Blackfoot Shawnee would indicate that same kind of thing.
There’s no reason to attribute any kind of derogatory tone to this ID. These families have carried that ID forward freely for many generations. I believe it’s a name that this group of people chose for themselves, who were in the end days an amalgam of a number of tribes that had been whittled down to some say no more than 300 souls by 1720.
I’m hoping to chase down some documentation this week that a friend told me exists in the archives in Richmond about a group of chiefs from or around Fort Christanna who informed the Governor of Virginia that they were banding together for strength and that they called themselves the Blackfoot. Wish me luck. If I can nail that down, I think that will pretty much do just that — nail it down.
Crystal,
Some of the surnames for the Haliwa-Saponi are:
Richardson, Lynch, Silver (Sylver, Sylva), Green, Mills (but some of the Mills are Cherokee), and Hedgepeth.
Linda:
I agree with your comment on the likelihood of the possible tie-in of the Shawnees similar to the Cherokees. I saw enough names on treaties that indicated fluidity between tribes with signatures like “Shawnee Jim” found signed as a Delaware (This is not a true one, just an example of something similar that I saw.), and Tecumseh’s mother was Cherokee. The Shawnee were found in areas like PA, Tennesee, South Carolina, as well as Ohio. They traveled a lot and were often used as buffers between warring tribes. My ggggrandmother who is known as Blackfoot came from Beaver County, PA, married my Irish ggggrandfather and emigrated with him and their many children to NE Iowa, with at least some children claiming both parents as Scotch-Irish immigrants. Her children married into Shawnee families who originated in Shepherdstown, West Virginia, moved to Licking County, Ohio and then to NE Iowa, passing as white. Same story as many others in this forum.
And, the article I cannot lay my hands on was not recent enough to be yours, Linda. Not unless you were around in the early 1900’s. I remember an abstract, bibliography, and a line about “Eastern Blackfoot” that relates to Shawnee. Considering that Black Hoof lived to be over 100 and supposed to have remembered bathing in the ocean, I think your comment about the mixture of tribes likely. My names are McLane (PA), Green, Huston, Potter, and Sinkey (Ohio). There are others, but these are the ones that have turned up native. My gggrandmother (Potter) really looks native. She wore her black hair in braids and was known for natural methods for healing people, as well as baking wonderful bread.
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