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Hi, I know the Eastern Blackfoot are a confederacy of Eastern Souian Tribes they later all lumped together under the name Saponi at Fort Christiana. Do I understand right that is the proper tribal name to use today? And that its understood that saying your Saponi could really mean your ancestry comes from any of the Eatern Siouan tribes, excepting Catawba? Do some people use Tutelo as a name for all the Eastern Blackfoot today? When I tell people I’m part Saponi I almost feel like I’m lying because I’m not sure my ancestry is with that particular group. I know it is Eastern Blackfoot as far as that line goes. Also I’ve noticed the Catawba are never included as being “Saponi”, and I’ve wondered since they were Siouxan speaking people too, wer’e they a totally different group than ours? They always seem seem very distinctly seperate and I’ve wondered what the relationship between them was traditionally? Hope someone interested in this has time to respond. Curious Minds want To Know!!! Jeff in St. Louis
I just did a quick search of this site for the word “Catawba” and got 168 hits. So, yeah, they have come up.
Some of us are more interested in the Eastern Siouan Descendants Association as an organizing concept, than in tribal identity, or reconstitution, or federal recognition as such.
There is no “x” in Siouan.
One indication that some Saponi, or formerly Saponi, families settled among (or very near) the Catawbas around the time of the Revolution (not much earlier, I think) is the list of petitioners against a poll tax in SC in 1794. Several of the people on this petition shortly thereafter moved to E. Tennessee and SW Virginia, and were subsequently identified (by other people) as “Melungeons.” And others of their near kin moved to the same area more directly from the VA/NC piedmont border counties, and also became known as Melungeons. Whether any of them were actually Catawba descendants, I’m not sure. There may be a certain amount of romanticism, and nostalgia for a mostly lost tribal identity, involved in assuming too easily that some ancient kinship was behind the movement of Saponi descendants to the neighborhood of their fellow Siouans, the Catawbas. (For instance, it was wartime, or about to be — and they were mostly Tories. South Carolina was a little safer.) But for whatever reason, it did, to some extent, happen.
Some evidence of it is here:
http://www.saponitown.com/forum/showpost.php?p=23157&postcount=66
Hey Jeff this is something that many people recognize as a huge question but in your query you did mention something that we all share in, being “Eastern Souian Metis” or mixed blood people originating in the Carolinas and Va., for me it’s “Eastern Siouan and Cherokee” or Blackfoot Cherokee!
Tom wrote: Hey Jeff this is something that many people recognize as a huge question but in your query you did mention something that we all share in, being “Eastern Souian Metis” or mixed blood people originating in the Carolinas and Va., for me it’s “Eastern Siouan and Cherokee” or Blackfoot Cherokee!
Hey Tom,
That is usually the first thing I put “down” on forms or when asked about race/ethnicity. I have to explain what a Eastern Siouan Metis is but that is how I have been identifying myself (even though I have Choctaw ancestry, too).
Drae
hi my name is lisa. i would like to know who would i contact in order to find out about my cherokee indian and my cuban culture. please respond if you know where i could go to for help.
Hi Tom and Lisa. Yeah I too and besides White, Cherokee and Eastern Blackfoot. A lot of us with that mix I gather. When asked what Native blood I have I have been saying Cherokee and Saponi. Is that the best way to say E. Blackfoot these days or would I also be as correct to say I am Cherokee and Tutelo? Lisa if your intested in the Cherokee Culture I would suggest you go to the Cherokee of Oklahoma website and the Cherokee of NC website. I have been taking the online Cherokee language class from OK for the last year. I also looked on Yahoo Groups and joined several of the chat groups. The Cherokee in in their language have many of their groups listed under Tsalagi that you would want to join possibly. That is pronounced Ja-la-gee.Their is really a lot of Cherokee info. available online. Its frustrating looking for eastern Blackfoot compared to Cherokee pursuits. The Cherokee are like a world super power. LOL I avidly read your posts Tom and have really learned a lot from you. I appreciate all that you share. , Thanks, Jeff in St. Louis
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