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The Scots-Irish and Catawba Connection

23 May By Leave a Comment

The Catawba are a small tribe centered in Rock Hill, York County, South Carolina: www.catawbaindian.net  From about 1760 whites encroached on Catawba lands, and intermarriage occurred, largely with Scots-Irish. Their descendants have spread nationwide. The fact the Catawba were allowed to stay is somewhat unique in southern history. The Catawba Reservation is recognized by both South Carolina and the Federal Government.

The Catawba granted leases to incoming whites for 99 years. These are an important genealogical source.  This lease arrangement was unique. Louise Pettus’ work Leasing Away a Nation: The Legacy of Catawba Indian Land Leases (2005) details families who leased land as found in the surviving lease books 1785-1840. When white settlement was complete, the lease system lost its original meaning, and the land was ceded to South Carolina.

In 1884, the tribe began converting to Mormonism. The congregation is located in Rock Hill. Records (1885-1943) are on microfilm at the Family History Library (FHL). The membership registers are extracted in Pat Smith (White Buffalo Woman) and Dwight A. Radford’s article “The Scots-Irish as Catawba,” in The Irish At Home and Abroad 6, #3 (1999): 112-119.

Catawba records can be found in the South Carolina Department of Archives & History: http://scdah.sc.gov  with many on microfilm at the FHL: www.familysearch.org  The York County part of the South Carolina GenWeb: www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~scyork/ has useful information. Published material includes Thomas J. Blumer’s Bibliography of the Catawba (1987); Ian M. Watson’s Catawba Indian Genealogy: A Report to the National Endowment for the Humanities (1986); Robert H. MacKintosh’s Sources for Researching Catawba Indian Ancestry and History at the South Carolina Department of Archives (1993), and Ian Watson’s Catawba Indian Genealogy(1995):

www.ianwatson.org/catawba_indian_genealogy_2004.pdf 

There has been so much interest in Catawba Indian genealogy that there is no shortage of resources available.

The Scots-Irish and Native American Connection

16 Apr By Leave a Comment

If you have early roots in the American southeast, you already know there is a strong Scots-Irish connection with the various tribes. I’m speaking mainly of the Catawba, Cherokee, Chickasaw, Choctaw and Muscogee (Creek). This includes both black and white families prior to 1840.

Intermixture also occurred with the Scots, Welsh, Germans and English. Regardless, what you need to be aware of is if you have strange terms such as “Shanty Irish” or “Black Dutch” passed down in your family, this is usually the first clue to a mixed-blood heritage.

Actually, I hear “Black Dutch” all the time and people are very confused about that. Basically, terms such as this were given as explanations for mixed-blood heritage in an era where the color of skin affected civil rights such as land ownership, bearing arms, marriage, and slavery itself. Depending on who one marries, the children of a “Black Dutch” could “pass for white” solving these sticky issues. In this case “Black Dutch” was usually code for Cherokee or Chickasaw.

I would like to share three of my favorite books. The first is for background, Theda Perdue, Mixed Blood Indians: Racial Construction in the Early South (Athens, Georgia: The University of Georgia Press, 2003). The next two are genealogical: Rachal Mills Lennon, Tracing Ancestors Amopng the Five Civilized Tribes: Southeastern Indians Prior to Removal (Baltimore, Maryland: Genealogical Publishing Co., 2002); and Tony Mack McClure, Cherokee Proud: A Guide for Tracing and Honoring Your Cherokee Ancestors, 2nd ed.(Somerville, Tennessee: Chunannee Books, 2009).

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