My Native American
Ancestry – by David Arthur
The “Story Tellers”
NA ancestry Estimated based on DNA – Mother,
Bertha Overby Arthur 1/128 – Grandfather, James Overby 1/64 – G-Grandmother,
Sarah Skinner Overby 1/32 – 2nd G-Grandmother, Elizabeth Edmonds
Skinner 1/16 – 3rd G-Grandmother, Sally MNU Edmonds 1/8 – 4th
G-Grandmother Unknown ¼ - 5th G-Grandmother Unknown ½ ---- the next several previous generations
were likely both parents ½ Native American as there was in this area, a
sub-culture of half Native Americans resulting from European Male immigrants
having had children with Native American women (common law type marriages with
no colonial records). The children of these marriages (all half Native
Americans) married each other for several generations before assimilating into
either the European/American culture or the African American culture.
Descendants of this sub-culture have to this day varying skin color tones in
the same set of siblings.
My Native
American Ancestry, which is approximately 0.4%, most likely is through a 5th
Great-Grandmother dating to the late 1600s or early to mid 1700s in South
Central Virginia. This ancestor would have been ½ descended from one or more of
the Siouan-speaking tribes. The documentation copied below is in a large part
about the Occaneechi people. My Ancestry is not likely from them, but is likely
from some of the associated Siouan-speaking tribes, most probably the
Nottoways, Meherrins, or Saponi. These associated tribes are discussed in some
of the documentation below.
In the
Lunenburg County VA area as well as much of the surrounding area there existed
a culture of peoples derived from the intermarriage of early European
immigrants with Native Americans. In the decades after the settlement of
Jamestown, there were numerous young single European males who came to North
America, while almost no single European females immigrated in the early years.
This resulted in the marriage, many times, common law marriages, or some such arrangement,
between these European males and Native American females. The resulting
children, half native American and half European, resulted in a culture of
peoples which were separate from the "aristocracy immigrants" who
received gifts of land from the English King. The half natives were numerous
and married almost exclusively with other part natives for several generations.
Due to their paternity being the males from Europe, these people all had
European surnames. In Southeastern Lunenburg, these surnames included, Edmonds,
Turner, Daniel, and Thompson. These people were the surviving segment of the
Native American culture, as many of the Native Americans sub-combed to European
diseases for which they had no immunity. The children of the inter-marriages
did have immunities from their paternal heritage. They, for the most part,
adapted to live as European culture dictated, but continued many of the Native
American culture traditions, ie. herbal medicine and a penchant for hunting and
fishing. As a child, I remember my maternal grandfather, (who’s Grandmother,
Elizabeth Edmonds, was said to be descended from the part native subculture),
continuing the tradition of storytelling.
http://www.davidarthur.us/FamilyHistoryStoryTelling.htm Stories from my Grandfather.
Documentation
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occaneechi
The Occaneechi
(also Occoneechee and Akenatzy) are Native Americans who lived in the 17th
century primarily on the large, 4-mile long Occoneechee Island and east of the
confluence of the Dan and Roanoke rivers, near current-day Clarksville,
Virginia. They were Siouan-speaking, and thus related to the Saponi, Tutelo,
Eno and other Southeastern Siouan-language peoples living in the Piedmont
region of present-day North Carolina and Virginia.
Name
The meaning and
origin of the name Occaneechi is unknown. They have also historically been
called the Achonechy, Aconechos, Akenatzy, Akenatzy's, Hockinechy, Occaneches,
Occaanechy, Occhonechee, Occonacheans, Occoneechee, Ockanechees, Ockanigee,
Okenechee, Acconeechy, Occaneeches, Ochineeches, and Ockinagee.
History
17th century
The Occaneechi
were first written about in 1650, by English explorer Edward Bland. He wrote
that lived on the Trading Path that connected Virginia with the interior of
North America. Their position on the Trading Path gave the Occaneechi the power
to act as trading "middlemen" between Virginia and various tribes to
the west. In 1673, Abraham Wood, a Virginian fur trader, sent James Needham and
Gabriel Arthur into the southern Appalachian Mountains in an attempt to make
direct contact with the Cherokee, thus bypassing the Occaneechi. The party did
make contact with the Cherokee. It was not until the last decades of the 17th
century, when South Carolina colonists established a strong relationship with
the Cherokee and other interior tribes, that the Occaneechi role as trading
middleman was undermined.In May 1676, the Occaneechi allied with Nathaniel
Bacon and his British troops in a war with the Susquehannock; however, the
British immediately turned on their allies and attacked three forts within the
Occaneechi village. The British killed the Occaneechi's leader Posseclay,
approximately one hundred men, as well as many women and children. A
Susquehannock war party attacked Occoneechee Island in the summer of 1678.
18th century
In 1701 John
Lawson visited the Occaneechi village, located on the Eno River near present
day Hillsborough, North Carolina. His written report plus modern archaeological
research at the site give insight into a society undergoing rapid change. They
also were working to continue traditional crafts and a way of life.
Historian
Robert Beverley, Jr., in his History and Present State of Virginia (1705),
wrote that the Occaneechi language was widely used as a lingua franca,
"understood by the chief men of many nations, as Latin is in many parts of
Europe" — even though, he says, the Occaneechi "have been but a small
nation, ever since those parts were known to the English." Beverley said
that the "priests and conjurers" of the other Virginia Indian tribes
"perform their adorations and conjurations" in this general language,
much "as the Catholics of all nations do their Mass in the Latin."
Linguistic scholars believe that the Occaneechi spoke a dialect of the Siouan
language Tutelo.Virigina governor Alexander Spotswood mentioned the Occaneechi
as being one of nine Native nations within Virginia in 1712. Along with the
"Stuckanok, Tottero, and Saponi," the Occaneechi signed a
"Treaty of Peace" with the colony of Virginia in 1713. They moved to
Fort Christanna in southeast Virginia. Occaneechi Town was almost entirely abandoned
by 1713.
Fort Christanna
was operated by the Virginia Company from 1714 to 1717. Its closure was
apparently due to a lack of profits as an Indian trading center. Although
several distinct groups of Siouan Indians lived at Fort Christanna, the English
Virginians tended to refer to them simply as "Saponi" or "Fort
Christanna Indians." After the closing of Fort Christanna in 1717,
colonial records contain few references to the Occaneechi. Those references
that do exist indicate a continued trade between Virginia colonists and the
Saponi and Occaneechi.By 1720, after ongoing losses from warfare, the remnant
bands of the Occaneechi, Saponi, and Stukanox, "who not finding themselves
Separately Numerous, enough for their Defence, have agreed to unite in one Body,
and all of them now go under the Name of the Sapponeys, as William Byrd II
wrote.
In 1727, a
settler living near the Iroquoian Meherrin, in a region where some violence had
broken out, wrote to the governor of Virginia about the events. He said the Meherrin
denied attacking the Nottoway (another Iroquoian tribe). "They lay the
whole blame upon the Occaneechy King and the Saponi Indians." This
suggests that English settlers recognized a distinction between the Occaneechi
and Saponi.
In 1730
Virginia's House of Burgesses records noted an "Interpreter to the Saponi
and Occaneechi Indians." This implied the existence of monoglot Occaneechi
people.
In 1730, many
Saponi moved to live among the Catawba in South Carolina, but most returned to
Virginia in 1733, along with some Cheraw Indians. After 1733 the Saponi appear
to have fragmented into small groups and dispersed. Some apparently remained in
the vicinity of Fort Christanna, which was noted in Virginia records by its
Saponi name, Junkatapurse. After 1742 the settlement is no longer mentioned,
but only a road called Junkatapurse. In the 1740s, the Saponi migrated south to
live with the Catawba. Governor Gooch of Virginia reported that the
"Saponies and other petty nations associated with them ... are retired out
of Virginia to the Cattawbas" during the years 1743-1747. Most of the
remaining Saponi members were recorded as migrating north in 1740 for
protection with the Iroquois. They mostly disappeared from the historical
record in the Southeast. After the American Revolution, in which four of the
Iroquois Six Nations had sided with the losing British, the majority of the
Iroquois (and Saponi) went to Canada for resettlement. Descendants live mostly
at the Six Nations of the Grand River First Nation reserve in Ontario.
Traditional English-American histories typically describe the Saponi group of
Indians as having left Virginia and North Carolina in the 18th century, either
to join the Catawba or the Iroquois.
Starting in the
middle of the 18th century, however, historic records note Saponi living in
North Carolina. Some Saponi moved from Virginia to various places in North
Carolina. There is some evidence that isolated Indians never left these areas
of North Carolina and became consolidated with Saponi from Virginia.
In 1756,
Moravian settlers living near present-day Winston-Salem reported an Indian
palisaded "fort" settlement near the Haw River. The Moravians called
the Indians "Cherokees", but it is more likely they were Sissipahau
("Saxapahaw") or another group related to the Occaneechi. This, along
with various oral traditions, indicates Indians' living in a more or less
traditional manner in North Carolina's Piedmont after such settlements
supposedly vanished.
In 1763, Lt.
Governor Francis Fauquier of Virginia wrote a letter that included a
description of the Indians of Virginia: "There are some of the Nottoways,
Meherrins, Tuscaroras, and Saponys, who tho' they live in peace in the midst of
us, lead in great measure the lives of wild Indians." He contrasted these
Indians with the Eastern Shore and Pamunkey Indians, whom he described as more
assimilated to English ways. Thus, there are still indications of Saponi in
Virginia during this period.
-----------------------
A Brief History of the
Occaneechi Band of the Saponi Nation
The Occaneechi
Band of the Saponi Nation—OBSN for short—is a small Indian community located
primarily in the old settlement of Little Texas, Pleasant Grove Township,
Alamance County, North Carolina. Until the middle part of the 20th century, the
community was largely occupied in agricultural pursuits, sometimes supplemented
by day wage labor jobs or jobs in nearby factories. In recent decades the
numbers of people engaged full or part time in agriculture has declined
significantly, and most working adults in the community now work in offices, or
as skilled workers and craftsmen, or in the few remaining factories in the
area.
The OBSN
community is a lineal descendant of the Saponi and related Indians who occupied
the Piedmont of North Carolina and Virginia in pre-contact times, and
specifically of those Saponi and related Indians who formally became tributary
to Virginia under the Treaties of Middle Plantation in 1677 and 1680, and, who
under the subsequent treaty of 1713 with the Colony of Virginia agreed to join
together as a single community. This confederation formed a settlement at Fort
Christianna along the Virginia/North Carolina border in what is now Brunswick
County, Virginia.
The
confederation included the Saponi proper, the Occaneechi, the Eno, the Tutelo,
and elements of other related communities such as the Cheraw. All of these
communities were remnants of much larger Siouan communities that had lived in
North Carolina and Virginia in prehistoric times.
The Saponi
confederation was closely allied with the Catawba confederation, and occupied
several forts and settlements located in what are now Greensville County and
Brunswick Counties, Virginia from about 1680 until the mid-18th century, when
the last Virginia fort, Christianna, fell into disuse. They also continued to
occupy fortified villages and other settlements in North Carolina into the
mid-1700s during this period. While maintaining distinctions among themselves
(sometimes exaggerated by non-Indian contemporaries and by later historians),
the various elements within the Saponi confederation had a common origin and
were closely related, linguistically and culturally. Their final treaty with
Virginia included an agreement among the four signatory groups to formally
incorporate as one tribe under the name “Sapony.”
In January,
1715, Virginia’s Governor Spotswood wrote a letter to the Bishop of London describing
how he had “engaged the Saponie, Oconeechee, Stuckanox [Eno] and Tottero
Indians (being a people speaking much the same language, and therefore
confederated together, tho’ preserving their different Rules) immediately to
remove to y’t place, which I have named Christ-Anna.” In June of that year,
Spotswood wrote to the Commissioners of Trade in London that he had “…been for
a good part of last Spring, employ’d in finishing the fortifications of
Christanna, and in settling there a Body of our Tributary Indians to ye number
of 300 men, women and children, who go under the general name of Saponies…”
Acculturated members of the confederation and their descendants gradually
formed a settled community that, over time, became geographically and
culturally distinct from the traditional community. Formal marriages and
common-law relationships between Indians of the community and their European
neighbors contributed to divisions between the settled community and more
conservative community members. Documentary evidence of the existence of the
acculturated community begins to appear in local records as early as the 1720s.
As these records involve adults, it is likely the acculturated community dates
back into the 17th century. A great majority of the tribe’s members can trace
their ancestry back to the individual Indians identified in such records.
The
acculturated community occupied a small tri-border area in what are now
Greensville County, Virginia, Brunswick County, Virginia, and Northampton
County, North Carolina. Their settlement was also midway between two forts
built for the Indians by Virginia, and about 10 miles south of a third fort,
near modern-day Purdy, Virginia, that was apparently built by the Indians
themselves, probably for defense against Iroquois raiders from the north. More
precisely, the community’s land was located south of modern Emporia, Virginia
(Greensville County), west into Brunswick County, and extending across the
State line into the northwestern corner of Northampton County, North Carolina
and to the Roanoke River. Researchers for the OBSN have documented the
development of this community from the late 17th through the early 19th
centuries, by which time emigration to the Midwest and other parts of the South
had reduced it to a handful of families.
For years lay
people and researchers have discovered thousands of artifacts from
"Occoneechee Town," "Saponi Town" and "Tutelo
Town" on islands in the Roanoke River near Clarksville, Virginia. Prior to
the flooding of the islands in 1952, this was one of the richest archeology
sites on the East Coast. Since 1983 the Research Laboratories of Anthropology
at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill have been uncovering another
"Occaneechi Town", a late 17th and early 18th century Occaneechi
village on the Eno River near present-day Hillsborough, North Carolina.
Recent history
In 1995, a
community centered around Pleasant Grove, North Carolina claimed descent from
the Fort Christanna confederation of Occannechi, Saponi, and Tutelo began hosting
an annual powwow and organized under the name Occaneechi Band of Saponi. They
are recognized by the state of North Carolina and primarily reside in Alamance
County.
The
contemporary Occaneechi and Haliwa-Saponi tribes are mostly descendants of multiracial
people who settled on the frontier of Virginia and North Carolina as early as
the mid-to late 18th century. They migrated and acquired land as did European
or English neighbors from the Tidewater areas. 20th century researchers such as
Paul Heinegg and Dr. Virginia Easley De Marce have conducted extensive research
in colonial records: including court records, deeds of land, wills, etc. to
trace back members of families in this area who were listed in the 1790 census.
They have found 80 percent of those listed as free people of color, a category
that then included Indians, could in fact be traced back to African Americans
free in Virginia during the colonial period. Most of the free people of color
were descended from relationships between white women and African men, often
both indentured servants, during the 17th and 18th century when racial
boundaries between groups were not as hardened as they later became. Some of
the African men were slaves freed as early as the 17th century, as was John
Jeffries, a "Negro man" belonging to Captain Robert Randall and freed
in 1698 in Surry County, Virginia. Paul Heinegg believes he was the
great-grandfather of Jacob Jeffries who settled in Orange County, North
Carolina by 1790, but there is no documentary evidence for this. In frontier
areas, such peoples of mixed race sometimes identified themselves (or others
did) as Indian, or Portuguese, or Spanish, to explain darker skin color or
physical features not typical of northern Europeans. In some areas they may also
have intermarried with a few American Indians. People in the mixed-race groups
associated with different social groups over the decades: some marrying into
the white community, some marrying other multiracial people and identifying as
Indian, and others marrying into the black community.
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page as a PDF file
http://www.davidarthur.us/NativeAmericans.pdf
