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I just spent about a week or so on the Germanna L-list board.
I told what I knew about my Waylands, and asked if anyone there knew about the the Saponi who lived nearby before 1740. I asked if they knew anything about possible unions between Indians and Germanna settlers.
They never attempted to respond to these querries. One person said somehting about “Vance’s myth” and another wrote me a personal note saying I was misleading people about my Wayland ancstors.
It appeared to me that everyone thought what I had said was nothing but a joke. This was especially mean spirited NOT because they disagreed with me, but rather because they made no attempt to examin the evidence I provided for my family. There is a difference in providing evidence for an opinion and having an opinion with no or little evidence to back it up.
They will be no help at all to anyone searching possible Saponi comnnections to Orange or Culpeper County, and I had expected so much more of them. I had the impression they might not want to think it possible that a “German” might consider marrying an “Indian”. Wasn’t Plecker a German?? Well I just wanted to vent a little I suppose. I went there hoping to make friends and just got rediculed.
Well now I am gonna search even harder in the Germanna area for evidence of Saponi in the region.
And I hope they read this post, too. 🙂
Vance
Vance,
Have you seen this website? http://homepages.rootsweb.com/~george/johnsgermnotes/germhs82.html
Would the authors be someone to contact via e-mail? Sounds like you were kind of “brushed aside”. Sorry.
Seems totally crazy to me to think that people on the frontier..German or not..were not in contact with “friendly” indians and mixing. And I could care less who thinks I’m bonkers. Sue J
Thanks Sue, there as a lot of great information there.
It mentions Robert Beverly owning a lot of land. I saw one reference to him saying he was one of the first writers of Virginia History. He started his book by saying that he was an Indian. I’ll try to find that reference again.
It also mentions some of the things I have been looking into lately — connections betwen Graffenreid, Spotswood, The Tuscarora War, Forts Germanna and Christianna, the Iron mine in Fort Germanna and the Indian Trading Company in Fort Christianna. These forts, the war, the mine and trading company were all started about the same time and all these individuals were all involved.
Spotswood is the catalyst around which a great deal of history revolved conserning both Germanna and Christianna, and hence, these Germans and the Saponi.
Since my Wayland’s (a Germanna surname) lived at Stoney Creek, Scott County, in SW Va where there were known Melungeon Gibson’s are literally next door neighbors and on their land to boot, and since in Richard Carlson’s dissertation he concludes these Gibson’s are Saponi, I think for me personally, a further study of Spotswood’s era might help me find out more about my ancestor, Nevil Wayland Sr., and hopefully might provide clues as to who his parents were.
vance
Vance,
I was trying to find where Germanna was after reading your post and found this URL : http://www.progenealogists.com/palproject/va/1717germ.htm It mentions a Weiland family who were at Germanna.
Cindy
Vance:
Here, look at this one http://gcclearn.gcc.cc.va.us/sitehistory/sp1714.htm It directly says that Spotswood wanted Germanna to trade with the Saponi Indians.
Cindy
Here are references where Robert Beverley says he is an Indian —
In the preface to the first edition of his History of Virginia, published at London 1705, Robert Beverley says of himself: “I am an Indian, and don’t pretend to be exact in my language.” This intimation may perhaps have been merely playful, but the full and minute account that he has given of the Indians, shows that he took a peculiar interest in that race.
end of quote —
This website aslo says Beverly’s family came from England, originally.
http://www.ratical.org/many_worlds/6Nations/EoL/intro.html
http://media.wiley.com/product_data/excerpt/36/04711235/0471123536.pdf
By the end of the century, some Virginians had begun to pay more atten-tion to their history. Between 1697 and 1724 several histories appeared,including the collaborative Present State of Virginia, and the College (1697) andHugh Jones’s Present State of Virginia (1724). The titles of those works suggestthe perspective they employed as a rule; Robert Beverley’s History and PresentState of Virginia (1705) constitutes only a partial exception. In moving a bitbeyond mere description of the present, Virginians were attempting to locatethemselves, both for their own audience and for a metropolitan one. Thatthey still addressed the latter audience as remote outsiders is suggested byBeverley’s introductory apology: “I am an Indian, and don’t pretend to be exact in my Language.â€
below — writing where Beverley proclaimed himself to be an Indian. —
Robert Beverley, The History and Present State of Virginia, ed., Louis B. Wright (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1947), pp. 59, 117, 296–297.
======================
Most writers seem to think he was not speaking “literally”, but isn’t Beverley a known Saponi/Tutelo/Occoneechee/Monacan surname? Where did it originate? Does it go back to this “Robert Beverley”? If so, can this be confirmed?
vance
http://loki.stockton.edu/~gilmorew/0colhis/vl1s-89.htm#3.%20The
Go to link above and click on
3. The Legacy of “Earth’s Onely Paradise” in Eighteenth Century Virginia
Robert Beverley (c.1673-1722). The History and Present State of Virginia. 1705-06
Beverley gives a very interesting description early 18th century Virginia Indians, including a description of the firmness of Indian woman’s breasts . . . He describes the Indians he knows from apparent first hand knowledge.
He is writing as tho he is not an Indian himself. Maybe he was an adopted Indian, or mixed? He writes like a White man or at most mixed race-person who was raised white. So altho he said he was Indian, I’d like to see or hear more evidence of it. He definitely was a friend to Indians or knew them first hand.
vance
Hope it is ok for me to be here asking the questions I have. My husband descends from Johanne Jost Merten aka Joseph Martin of the original 14 German families that settled in Fort Germanna.
He had a son named Henry. When I first found the info on this family one of the websites I found said he was married to Mary Ann Twelve Doe. I have asked several for more info on this and asked if she was Native American but no one I asked will answer.
I have no idea how to start research on this and wonder if anyone here can give me some ideas. Do you think Twelve Doe is a Native American name?
Thanks,
Kathy
Kathy,
If no one would answer, they must not have any proof of their assertion. I would regard this name as improbable.
Bill
No one will provide documentation and the name sounds like someone made it up. Could some of the Germana people have married Natives? It’s possible. I think that is different than a statement that “They did they marry Natives ” for which there is no documentation yet found to substanciate.
Bill
I just finished reading this book http://www.continuitypress.com/melbook.html
Melungeons: Examining An Appalachian Legend
by Pat Spurlock Elder
and she gave me some possible leads on an ancestor thats stumped me for years.I have several possible melungeon lines in my tree but the mosy definite one is my goins line which starts with Alexander Goins of lawrence county ky who appears to have originally been raised in the wise county va/hancock county tenn area and possibly born in nearby nc or va.Now their are several alexander goins in this area at the same time.mine was the one murdered in stonega va in 1844.Ms. Spurlock claims that the melungeon branch of goins seems mostly to have been german and came from the germanna colonies and specifically mentions the name kines/kaines as the percursor of the goins name.their is a john kines/kaines listed for the hebron church colony in 1741.he was a land owner.She also pointed out several close by and well populated indian villages of monacan stock.the liklihood of trade she believes was great.perhaps the traded genes as well.my 4th gr grandad alexander was noted to be not white though he is listed on the 1830 census as white along with his family.I also think it strange that the name alexander seems to be so common amongst the melungeon goins.alexander spotswood the moving force behind the germanna colonies and also instrumental in the christanna colony was a well respected man.could it be where the name originally came from in the goins family.alexander is not german so they would have had to picked it up here more then likely.She really has no proof for her goins theory but I have none for mine either but I believe her reasoning is sound.she believes melungeons were indian and indian/white mixed and not portuguese or turks or anything else.
I posted this because it seems that we have a common interest here.I had thought about contacting the germanna list myself but hadn”t done it.perhaps i better let well enough alone:-)No I don”t want a reservation or to start my own casino and to look at me all you”d see is white except for very black hair and narrow eyes.( the doctor thought i was oriental when i was born)but I”ve run into some dead ends in my tree and some of them seem to keep coming back to these so called melungeon and melungeon associated surnames.Indians never kept census records did they?:-)
Al
I”ve heard of jack goins but have never read his book.does he hold to the portuguese,turk,etc…theory or to the native american theory?i don”t believe in the portuguese theory though I”ve read every book on the juan pardo and desoto expeditions in print almost:-)I do believe their could be a small element of spanish and potruguese in appalachian populations from these expeditions where they no doubt bred with indians and hence passed genes on that survive in the mountains to this day but the modern day melungeon descendants i believe are primarily white mixed with monacan/saponi indian and while their may have been some black blood mixed with the whites and/or indians according to Ms Spurlock the indians had basically the same racial attitudes that afflicted the whites when it came to intermarriage with blacks at that time so it probably wasn”t widespread though I”m sure things happened outside of marriage more then in wedlock since wedlock with blacks was illegal at different times in different states even.
Al
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